Harvesting Something

rusty6 · Sep 30, 2018

Looks like I won't be harvesting canola today. The sample I tried last night is over 15% moisture. Safe storage levels are at the 10% or less. The hopper of wheat I did to finish a field was just over 20%. Dangerous but cold enough and mixed with a bin of dry it should be ok. Oats were 15% which I can live with for a while. Looks like all I will harvest today is potatoes. Nice crop and I'd hate to lose them to frost with these cold nights. My back won't handle digging the whole patch today but I've got a good start on it.

P I Pete · Sep 30, 2018

Sure looks like you have some nice soil.

Pete

centash · Sep 30, 2018

I hope your potatoes are better than mine.....planted about 35 plants this spring,
got enough potatoes for two meals. Looks like we'll go hungry this winter.
Ben

rusty6 · Sep 30, 2018

Yes, we have been blessed with some fine productive black soil here. Thin layer of black over yellow clay and rocks. Considering the dry
summer these potatoes did pretty good. I did help them out with irrigation from the deep well a few times and can sure see the difference in
the parts of the garden that missed the water.

ohiojim · Sep 30, 2018

them some big taters

paul · Sep 30, 2018

Yea always enjoy Rusty?s pics. Nice looking produce there.

I don?t know if any crops in southern Mn looked good this year. The commercial peas and sweet corn were disasters, the peas drowned they often came in and took out 2 rounds on the hill tops and left again, from a 40-60acre field. Sweet corn they only got 3/4of the contracted acres planted, and some of that was planted 5 days later than the normal cut off and is subject to frost damage and light yields. There was a three week period nothing got planted, it rained 15? in 30days in early summer.

Too many rock and too uneven clayish soils for potatoes or sugar beets to be grown locally, other then gardens. Can?t imagine they would have faired well here.

Paul

Philip d · Sep 30, 2018

Those look like good eats Rusty

rusty6 · Sep 30, 2018

(quoted from post at 16:55:56 09/30/18) Those look like good eats Rusty

They are. I am frying some up for supper right now. Total for the day is 16 (5 gallon pails) dug. I left some on the truck in the shed so should be ok on a cold night. Still probably another ten pails in the ground. Some are huge. I've got some video to upload to youtube if I get around to editing it.

Bruce from Can. · Sep 30, 2018

Sure look good. I am going to give up trying to go a
garden in this unforgiving clay, and build a few
raised beds for next year. Wish I had some dirt like
you do

JD Seller · Sep 30, 2018

Bruce build your beds. Then get the dirt/hay/manure from where you feed hay. It will GROW great garden plants. I do not care if it started out as clay. The organic matter in it will make things go. I have a eight foot square that I grow tomatoes on. More than we can use or give away.

coshoo · Oct 1, 2018

I tried spuds exactly once in my clay soil, many years ago. It was a disaster. I let Safeway do my potato farming now.

Other garden stuff does OK, I add compost most years to lighten up the soil a little. Didn't do it this last spring, and I can sure tell the difference!

I did have to do a raised bed, with expanded metal on the bottom, to raise carrots, because a Mazama Pocket Gopher ate off all the bottoms of the carrots planted in the regular garden last year. They're an "endangered species"- and that little sucker sure would have been endangered if I could have caught him in the act!

WI Dan · Oct 1, 2018

very nice Roosty

Ande · Oct 1, 2018

You might have seen this over in the Case forum, but here is a old digger that saves my back

rusty6 · Oct 2, 2018

That Case tractor and potato digger look pretty impressive but more than I need for my small patch of potatoes. My brother offered to bring their tractor and digger but I felt I could still handle it the old fashioned way. I think I'm down to about one wheel barrow full left out there now. This video shows how their Kubota and digger plows the potatoes out. Seems to work for them. Sorry, I can't make a blue "clickable" link on this modern view section of the forum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxeXNLPT9NQ&t=21s

Harvesting Something

rusty6

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P I Pete

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centash

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rusty6

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ohiojim

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paul

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Philip d

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rusty6

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Bruce from Can.

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JD Seller

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coshoo

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WI Dan

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Ande

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rusty6

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