Before and After - Taters

 Potatoes and beans have been one of the more difficult fields for us to handle for the weeds.  There are a number of reasons for it, but rather than dwell on that here, we'd like to just show what we feel is a success story (thus far) this year.

Ok, that's not looking too bad.

William Tool Bar (flex tine harrow)

 We've been using our flex tine weeder on the potatoes more than we have in the past.  Part of the sacrifice has been to wait before putting the bush beans in to the adjacent rows.  As you can see above, the ends of the rows have some problems, but that makes sense when you consider Rob has to slow down on the ends and the cultivator is less effective.

Sadly, we didn't take time to show the middle sections of the rows with our camera, which would have made things look ever so much better.  It's one of those cases where one angle makes it look worse than it is and the other makes it look far better than it is.

Ok, we'd better get in there and do some weed control

The truth of the matter is that we did a very good job of sneaking the taters in right on time this season.  We made adjustments in planting that reduced the labor load and we were pretty pleased with ourselves.  But, it is clear that some adjustments must be made.  Isn't that always the truth?

Potato germination has not been as good this year as it normally is.  The Kennebecs have been awful with only about 15% germination.  The Mountain Rose's were around 75%, so we'll take that.  Canela is worse at about 50%.  Red Norland, Harvest Moon and Carola seems fine.  Perhaps conditions this Spring have had something to do with it.  However, we have heard from others that there have been some germination issues with certain seed.  We'll deal with that later since we're more interested in keeping the plants that are growing happy.

Oh! That's better.

 We did some in-row hand weeding and were pretty pleased with how quick most of it went.  This indicates to us that the early cultivation with the Williams Tool Bar worked.  The exceptions were the end of the beds and the southern most bed.

What's wrong with that bed?  Well, we planted these before we had our new power harrow and the 13th bed was a bit close to the path.  Weed pressure is higher there and the flex tine couldn't really find purchase in that area. 

This was supposed to be our 'throw away' or 'extra' bed.  We didn't expect it to do well.  Except - it was the first to germinate - and it germinated well.  Hmph.  So, we're working on it.  

Beans need a little attention still, but the rest is good to go.

Otherwise, things are looking pretty good.  Here's hoping for a nice tater harvest this year.