Now that looks like hard digging. But the voles didn't bother them I'll bet.

The mile a minute is the foreground weed that looks sort of like mint leaves?

No trouble with voles. The mile a minute is aka Bindweed. Leaf sort of arrow shaped. Really tough vines, they were all twined around each other and for sure you could make a strong rope with this stuff.
This is my first experience with the bindweed. No idea where this came from, but it must've been growing there for awhile.
The foreground weed is raspberry! Another dire adversary.

Pics of bindweed look like what I call fauxbeans. They look like mini beans stalks and wrap around everything, especially pea trellis. I had never noticed the stuff before the comm garden. I get it in the compost rows but as long as I pull it once in a while it doesn't go too nuts.

I think I'd take the bindweed over rasp berry going nuts.

edit seems to me I've heard some people at the comm garden call that morning glory. Just saw a webpage that called it "wild morning glory" and got me remembering that. And one of the rules at the comm garden is "no morning glory because it is invasive".

@JRinPA the roots of this stuff were deeper than the potatoes. I guess they probably survived being buried when the spuds were planted, and found their way up through. There was also so little rain that some sods (and odds=weeds of sundry) had not fully rotted during the summer. So they may have come from that layer as well.
I hear you about the raspberries, they are a most unwelcome weed. I picked that end of the old garden to plant in because there were none coming through there at the time. That was from being mowed several times the year before. But the raspberries are an extensive thicket below and around the garden, so they managed to get in again - or came late from small surviving piece of root. They sure are hard to get rid of!

Bindweed is a pain in the butt. Letting it go to seed insures a ton of it the following year. After carefully tearing it out in the fall I always start the growing season with good intentions, vigorously pulling each little seedling I see popping up. But, as usual, once the season gets more busy the attention to bindweed seedlings becomes less and then the effort becomes pulling off the vines they have made. Bindweed is almost impossible to get rid of.

@GoDawgs I was thinking of investing in a roll of cardboard to 'tarp' the area down there and try Svalli's method of growing spuds with cover instead of all that 'young person' trenching work that doesn't suit me as well as I think.
I wonder if that would work on the bindweed. They seem like some other weeds I know, that will hunker down and make roots instead for whatever sprout they can make on the side. I'm sure it would help but... Well maybe I shouldn't worry since the spuds held their own in spite of them.
One thing for sure, that large garden bed full of great soil will not be getting any hand weeding attention. It's pretty far from the house and wow, it was tough to tackle even a couple of beds down there, for only two days work. Good dirt though.

I dug my last bit of potatoes, about 8 ft. These were also sharing a double row with shelling beans that did pretty well before the bean beetle onslaught. The difference between this and my first row: the seed potatoes were maybe 8-10 bigger ones with less crazy sprouts. And they were left in an extra 5-6 weeks.

The results were bigger potatoes overall. Not much in the way of vole damage - I think (hope) I have them under control.

Poles needed cleaning up Some weeds encroaching but not too bad. Can see a couple green ones showing on top. They were only a few inches down and hilled over at planting, untouched after that except for drip tape. I just recently weeded that spinach on the left and it looks like it doubled in size since two days back. Pretty good haul, 18lb for about 8 ft.x 1ft. I also helped my brother dig out his under-corn potatoes. They went in a little later and didn't get watered much...they were extremely small and sparse, from great big seed potatoes. He did get good enough corn overtop. Watering was very important around here in the hot humid and near rainless summer we had.

i just dug the last of the taters, mostly russets along with a couple others.
this has to be our best potato year ever. the russets continue to be huge.
several are in the 1lb plus range. my back says there was about 50lbs of potatoes.
this from about a 12 to 15 hills. just unbelievable.


keith

Nice! Sounds like my beet year.

Finally got the rest of my taters plowed out after the soil moistened up a little.

@Uncle_Feist
Nice Hual. that is a lot of potatoes

eyegrotom wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:40 pm @Uncle_Feist
Nice Hual. that is a lot of potatoes

I have a big family and we use a lot of food, especially spuds. It was a difficult year here in KY with all of the rain, but great soil in the tater patch saved the day. Thanks!!

They look great @Uncle_Feist .
I didn't grow a lot but it sure is nice to have home grown spuds.
My friends will be coming in a couple of days to store the potato crop from the farm in my root cellar. It's a pretty good cellar but tricky to get into, as the hatch is really heavy (it's built underneath my porch). Too much trouble for my couple of sacks but great if you are keeping something all winter.

Bower wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:55 pm They look great @Uncle_Feist .
I didn't grow a lot but it sure is nice to have home grown spuds.
My friends will be coming in a couple of days to store the potato crop from the farm in my root cellar. It's a pretty good cellar but tricky to get into, as the hatch is really heavy (it's built underneath my porch). Too much trouble for my couple of sacks but great if you are keeping something all winter.

Thanks!
A cellar is a must for long storage. I generally have spuds leftover as the new crop comes on.

Uncle_Feist wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 4:54 am

Bower wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:55 pm They look great @Uncle_Feist .
I didn't grow a lot but it sure is nice to have home grown spuds.
My friends will be coming in a couple of days to store the potato crop from the farm in my root cellar. It's a pretty good cellar but tricky to get into, as the hatch is really heavy (it's built underneath my porch). Too much trouble for my couple of sacks but great if you are keeping something all winter.

Thanks!
A cellar is a must for long storage. I generally have spuds leftover as the new crop comes on.

How are your cellars built in Kentucky?
The old school cellars here were built into the side of a hill. My grandfather had one similar to what is in the pictures here:
https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/tr ... -the-world
The cellar at my friend's farm is similar to the one under my porch, cement construction for the walls and a ladder and hatch, with a small hut built on top of that for access since it's out in the field. Unfortunately rats and/or squirrels did some damage and got into their crops a couple years ago, which hasn't been repaired yet. I had some persistent digging around my porch one year, so we applied hardware cloth to keep any visitors out. IDK if there were issues with the 'hillside' type of cellar, but when I see a door you can walk into without climbing a ladder, it looks good to me!

Bower wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 6:54 am

Uncle_Feist wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 4:54 am

Bower wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:55 pm They look great @Uncle_Feist .
I didn't grow a lot but it sure is nice to have home grown spuds.
My friends will be coming in a couple of days to store the potato crop from the farm in my root cellar. It's a pretty good cellar but tricky to get into, as the hatch is really heavy (it's built underneath my porch). Too much trouble for my couple of sacks but great if you are keeping something all winter.

Thanks!
A cellar is a must for long storage. I generally have spuds leftover as the new crop comes on.

How are your cellars built in Kentucky?
The old school cellars here were built into the side of a hill. My grandfather had one similar to what is in the pictures here:
https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/tr ... -the-world
The cellar at my friend's farm is similar to the one under my porch, cement construction for the walls and a ladder and hatch, with a small hut built on top of that for access since it's out in the field. Unfortunately rats and/or squirrels did some damage and got into their crops a couple years ago, which hasn't been repaired yet. I had some persistent digging around my porch one year, so we applied hardware cloth to keep any visitors out. IDK if there were issues with the 'hillside' type of cellar, but when I see a door you can walk into without climbing a ladder, it looks good to me!

Most of the older cellars here are just like the one pictured in your link. My cellar is above ground built on top of a cistern. The walls and ceiling are well insulated to capture the steady temperature radiating up through the concrete floor from the water in the cistern below. Temperature stays pretty constant during the winter and summer as well.

Cool! I like your approach of using water to moderate the temperature. Good design!

Thanks! @Bower

Good haul @Uncle_Feist . Did you have any issues with leaving them in this long? Rot or rodents? Or more like 100% good condition?

JRinPA wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:55 am Good haul @Uncle_Feist . Did you have any issues with leaving them in this long? Rot or rodents? Or more like 100% good condition?

Thanks, JRinPA!

There were no issues and I really didn't expect any. I generally don’t dig spuds until late fall anyway, most times in early-mid October. They will store better if introduction to light and warmer temperatures are limited. I would have already had these stored by now if the soil had not been been so dry. The hard dry dirt was bruising and scratching the skins when I plowed them out. So I made a call to leave em in the ground until the soil moistened up a little, and it just recently did.