GMO and all that crap.

[Kansas Jake]

Years ago we planted potatoes by just placing them on the side of the hill and then covered them with a thick mulch of loose straw 6-8 inches thick. We used a corn lister to make the hills. We were farming at the time and it was easy to build the hill. The advantage of the straw was the potatoes rooted under the straw, but also ran many roots between the straw and soil. To harvest the potatoes we simply peeled back the straw and there were the potatoes.

We haven't lived in a location where we could grow as many garden vegetables since then so potatoes haven't been on the list of things grown.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I've grown taters in straw bales...It works but not as well as dirt. Still it makes a great way to start a small square foot garden....

There's nothing like a big fresh home grown baked potato cooked on the grill in the summertime...

 

[Kansas Jake]

Or small thin skinned unpeeled new potatoes with some sugar pod peas and white gravy.

 

[Kansas Jake]

Maybe with a freshly kill chicken fried in a cast iron pan too since i've started dreaming about stuff that makes me drool.

 

[coloradoclyde]

That all sounds good to me.... :thumbsup:

 

[Ames]

Straw works great, but up here you are just making it easy for the rodents. Rows of dirt slow them down.
Years ago in a smaller garden, I grew them in straw and old tires. Plant the taters in the ground, set a tire around them, add straw when they come up. Then another tire, and straw. Etc. Etc. At harvest time you just start lifting off the tires from the stack. Taters are clean as can be. They just fall out. :wink:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Regarding coffee grounds...

I used coffee grounds to save azaleas in my yard, and a few others, but that's all. I found mine and a neighbor's were planted too close to the house. A gardener at the local nursery told me to check the water coming off the house when it rains, which runs right into the azalea bed...he said it's not uncommon for alkaline from the house paint to change the pH just enough to bother azaleas. Antidote....add some coffee grounds to the azalea soil. Sure worked well. :wink:

As for other soil problems, I had tomatoes one year that would be black and rotten at the base when it was time to harvest (well actually the "base" is where it joins the plant..., this was where the bloom once was on the fruit). Same guy told me probably a calcium problem in the soil.... (calcium?)..., so he gave me some stuff to add some of that to the soil, and voila, no more tomatoes rotting right when the go red...,

LD

 

[NeilMacleod]

Once I have my place tilled will see about getting it checked, been throwing all my kitchen stuff on the garden.
House next to me has lead paint and pealing, 20' away from my garden.

 

[Ames]

2 tablespoons of Epsom salts in a spray bottle of water. Spray the leafs, not the blossoms at fruit time. Magnesium. :wink:

 

[Black Hand]

Deer in my area aren't safe to eat...

?

 

[NeilMacleod]

Deer and other wildlife like to eat the feed given to cattle etc, feed thats not healthy and full of hormones.

 

[Black Hand]

Deer and other wildlife like to eat the feed given to cattle etc, feed thats not healthy and full of hormones.

Irrelevant.
It does NOT make them unsafe to eat....

 

[tenngun]

In the same category with science-denial and the anti-vaccine movement...

:thumbsup:

 

[Black Hand]

Deer and other wildlife like to eat the feed given to cattle etc, feed thats not healthy and full of hormones.

This is also an emotional appeal. If you wish to make this case, reputable scientific evidence supporting your position should be provided. How you or anyone else feels about it is not evidence...

 

[tenngun]

All the things that I note that are deadly in our modren life seem to have had very little effect on people today. Our population is seven times larger then it was in 1800. A greater percentage of the earths population is well fed, often too well fed, then ever before in the history of civilization. Today a greater percentage of the earths population can expect the biblical three score and ten or four score (70-80) then ever before in human history and pre history.
It’s not just medicine. I remember growing up in the sixties and being told of the green revolution. Then I was told in the seventies that the green revolution failed, and humanity could not stop massive world wide famine. That by 2000 half the people of the world would be starving. Eithiopia in the eighties was first winds of an oncoming storm.
I have to hit the gym today to fight my starvation that’s been going on these last twenty years, as evidenced by my 36-38 inch waist.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Deer in my area aren't safe to eat...

?

Personal opinion....

 

[coloradoclyde]

Deer and other wildlife like to eat the feed given to cattle etc, feed thats not healthy and full of hormones.

This is also an emotional appeal. If you wish to make this case, reputable scientific evidence supporting your position should be provided. How you or anyone else feels about it is not evidence...

Unhealthy eating makes an unhealthy animal or human....I don't think anyone will debate that...
Cows, deer, chickens, etc. are all harvested at a young age usually before the affects of diet and disease become noticeable.
I don't mean to sound like someone from P.E.T.A....But I, (unlike the vast majority of consumers) have followed animals all the way though the system....From birth to table. Our system as a whole is pretty good....But, I have seen some very shocking things.

It would be difficult for anyone to claim America is getting healthier...

 

[tenngun]

Unless you look at grave stones. While the lower life spans of history often reflected high childhood mortality and a person who reached adulthood stayed pretty healthy, sixty was a long life. The social security system was based on the idea few people would see seventy. Our unhealthy population is outliving all of its ancestors.
I would venture that we are more likely to be out of shape then unhealthy.

 

[Black Hand]

It would be difficult for anyone to claim America is getting healthier...

This can be directly attributed to poor choices in diet, exercise, smoking and various others. It is not difficult to be healthy in America, but many people are too lazy to even try. Very sad...

 

[Black Hand]

Modern medicine has also gotten good at keeping people alive that would have removed themselves from the gene pool due to poor choices/stupidity and those genes are unfortunately being passed to future generations...