Agree with @Bradybb. Leaves shutting down. I see terminal buds already formed .
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When I cut my saijo persimmons in half, several of them have little black spots in them and I’m curious what these are. They are not seeds and aren’t even in the center where seeds would be. They are dispersed throughout. They are about the size of a grape seed, though not as hard. Any ideas what they are? Just curious.
Any advice on when to transplant peaches? I grafted a couple 1 year seedlings this spring, I’m not sure if it would be better to wait until the leaves fall off, or if I can transplant it now.
@thecityman
“Little dark spots in persimmon”
I remember something about tannins forming insoluble compounds in persimmons causing black spots
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Spraying for pests (psylla) AFTER harvest
I had pear psylla bad this year and would like to get a jump on them for next year. I’ve read Lime sulfur could be done post harvest, but it seems that isn’t really an option. Any ideas what I can still do do to reduce populations going into winter? Some of my trees have defoliated already. Would it be helpful to use oil on whatver I have now?—Thanks!
How do I preserve and store my saijo persimmon seeds so I can get some persimmon seedlings next year? Should I completely dry them out and keep them dry all year, store them in damp paper towel in fridge, etc. Should I freeze for stratifying? If so, should they be dried out or dam,p before freezing?
Wash them with dish washing soap then dry them with a paper towel. All the seeds go into the sandwich ziplock bag and store in the refrigerator. Plant the seeds in the Spring.
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Don’t let them dry.
Don’t freeze.
Clean all fruit pulp off wash well.
Soak in water over night.,if they had any chance of loosing water.
Store in peat moss ,slightly damp ziplock bag. In the refrigerator , Above freezing - below 40deg until spring. Plant in spring
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Sorry tony ,you are.quicker typing than I .
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thanks both of you!
This year I have sweet potatoes growing that have gone crazy. I can’t even see the bed they started in and they’ve wandered across into 2 adjacent beds and covered those almost completely as well. It is fall, and they are flowering and still growing strong, but I’m wondering when I can harvest. Can I dig them now or do I have to wait until the vines die back? I realize I’ll probably get more/bigger tubers if I wait, but I’d like to get started cleaning up the garden, plant some garlic in the bed they’re in and put down mulch, plus the weeds mixed in between the vines are starting to go to seed which I can’t just let happen.
If I dig now, will they not cure correctly?
Any help is appreciated.
All my life, everyone I know locally has always claimed that sweet potatoes will keep better if you let the vines be killed by frost. That being said, I suspect it may just be an old wives tale. I interested to hear if anyone else has any evidence one way or the other.
Frost on the vines will cause the roots to rot.
Harvest befor frost
In my experience …
If it frosts on the vine, and I cut the vines at ground level ( cut the vines off of the root ) before the sun thaws the frost, I can save them.
If the frosted vine stays attached, there is something that moves down into the root causing a bad flavor, and rot soon. They will not keep. And bad flavor.
This seems odd, as the root is protected down in the soil from the frost.
Nevertheless this has been my experience ,have been growing sweet potatoes for 30 some years
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So it sounds like no real problem harvesting now and that it might be better than waiting for a frost. I guess they might get a little bigger if I wait, but I think I’ll dig at least a bit this weekend to see what’s going on and try to start making way for garlic in that bed. Thanks @thecityman and @Hillbillyhort!
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I have the utmost respect for @Hillbillyhort, but his experience is the opposite of my own. As I said, I’m not sure that the often cited belief that you need to let frost kill the vines has scientific validity, but I have always followed it anyway since it is so prevalent and often repeated around here. That means that I always let my sweet potato vines be killed by frost before I harvest them. Furthermore, after my vines are killed I often don’t dig all my potatoes for many days or even weeks. Yet my potatoes always keep extremely well as long as I cure them properly. (which for me basically means spreading them out on newspaper in a cool, dry area and putting a fan on them for the first few days). My sweet potatoes that I let be killed by frost and don’t always harvest for several days keep so well that I almost always use them the following year to grow sprouts for the next crop. In fact, my sweet potatoes really don’t go bad even after a full year- they usually just get too dry to use if anything, but rarely rot. The few times I haven’t properly cured them I’ve had rot problems. So I think probably curing them correctly has a lot more to do with storage success than whether the vines are killed from frost. But as I’ve said, most of the country farmers around here all believe strongly that letting frost kill the vines is absolutely necessary to make the potatoes keep well. I’ve grown sweet potatoes probably 25 of the last 30 years and have always let vines die from frost and they’ve always kept perfectly except when I’ve been in a hurry and just left them in a pile or in a box instead of spreading them out on paper and putting a fan on them. (I know most people probably don’t do the fan thing, but I firmly believe it helps dry/cure them.
If I understood @Hillbillyhort I think he was saying he has had the opposite experience- that letting the frost kill his vines actually makes the potatoes NOT store well unless he picks them quickly. So I’m afraid we’ve just confused you even more! ha. Sorry.
UPDATE: I have always been curious about the question of frost and sweet potato vines, so I’ve just spent quite a bit of time reading various articles and personal posts on various gardening sites from google searches. I found some support for letting frost kill, but I wanted to come back and say that it is very clear that the vast majority of people are in agreement with Hillbillyhort. I suppose I have just been lucky- not sure why my frost-kill system has worked so well in spite of most people saying the opposite. In fact, I probably won’t change since it works for me. But I felt honesty and integrity really required me to come back here and admit that I seem to be on the wrong side of this discussion and Hillbillyhort is with the majority.
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It maybe that different varietys behave differently .
I have been growing only one (unknown ) for many years
Very possible, who knows. I usually grow Georgia Jet or Beauregard. They look quite different but taste about the same to me.
Why not experiment? Harvest half now and let the other half go til frost - see which method works better, then report back to the class?
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I lost 90% of my sweet potatoes to what I think were mice. They were all chewed through and rotted, which slugs on the insides. I could see the little mouse claw or teeth marks. I had been successful in growing sweet potatoes for years now. It seems funny that although the roots were destroyed, the vines and leaves showed no signs of stress.
Anyone seen this before? Anyone put hardware cloth over the sweet potato bed to prevent this because that’s my plan going forward.