junglejim wrote:
OK here is my garden.
I skipped taters this year because they got some kind of pest in them last year & I hope they will dissapear after a couple seasons without potatoes around. You might also notice two compost bins that are busy composting sawdust/grass clippings, and kitchen waste; a part of my garden fence constructed from 12' by 1/2" by 3" strips that I sawed from SYP as I trimmed them down to the cant size I needed; and my garden shed- all products from my sawmilling habit.
You're doing good. It's good to see people use their local rescources and grow their own gardens. It hedges our bets against crop failures and famine and reduces everyone's dependance on foreign rescources and keeps the money in the local loop.
The problem you're having with potatoes is the infamous Colorodo potato beetle. The young are soft bodied and allmost black. As they mature they turn orange. The adults are a beetle that has a small head and large abdomen; and a small thorax that tapers in such a way that it blends the head to the abdomen. The adult is a little bigger than a Japanese beetle and can fly. It has brown and white stripes on its carapace. And I hope I got those terms right as I'm pulling all of them from memory of a time long ago and a place far away...
When I was growing up we grew 1/2 acre or more of potatoes here every year. I started noticing the Seven pesticide I was spraying wasn't killing them. Every year we started losing more and more of the vines to those pests. No one knew anything about pest building a resistence to chemicals. The whole industry has since learned about it and the Colorado potato beetle was an early poster child.
Their numbers build up every year when their food source is plentiful. They have a natural native relative of the potato (we call it a sand brier, but I don't know its proper name) they live on when potatoes (their favorite) aren't available. But they will also feed on tomatoes (another potato relative.) Nowadays the locals here that are in the know won't grow potatoes more than two years in the same spot because the number of beetles build up too high. They typically grow potatoes one year then let the area clear for two to three years before they grow another crop.
Jim, they're a plague. And they're hard to control. I've had some success hand picking them. I get every stage from egg (orange clusters typically under leaves) to adult. But we're trying a natural control (wood based - got any idea what it is?) this year and even though we didn't set up a proper double-blind w/control scientific experiment it seems to be working.
This year I've got asparagus, kale, kholrabi, lettuce, peas, sweet corn, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers (4 varieties), tomatoes (3 varieties), cabbage, culiflower,broccoli. brussel sprouts, green beans, and (this year 4 varieties of very excellent results (except red)) onions. I'll also be planting a lot of fall garden this year.
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As it began to mature we mused as to what it might be. Looked like a government experiment gone wrong. I guessed it was kohlrobi - lucky guess. We didn't know when to harvest or how to prepare. Being the dumb Hillbillies we are we simply cut it into sticks and served with salad dressing. What dumb blind luck. 
I guess you can go through life and be near and around something familiar to your comtemporaries and never see or try it. I've been in a lot of supermarkets in the Midwest and never saw it for sale. But I heard of it somewhere...just can't remember where. So I got some seeds and direct seeded some this year. I'm impressed. Now I'm going to grow a fall crop.
