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Vegetable Gardening

yellow leaves on bottom of potatoes and some dry-edged leaves on

15 years ago

i found some yellow leaves on the bottom of my potato plants today as i was weeding, as well as some dry-looking-edges on the tops ... it's been very hot (100+) here in yakima,wa and i have been watering them pretty heavily, AND we *sevined* the plants b/c of earwigs ... could those situations be the problem?

i did a search on this site and could not find an answer, yet, it's probably something very simple ....

thank you for any help ... darlene

ps ... oh, yea, even some of the weeds have yellow leaves, too ... strange

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Comments (2)

farmerboybill
15 years ago
Hey Darlene,

I don't really worry about yellowing leaves. Plants naturally abort leaves at the bottom of the plants. They grow new ones and the old ones become inefficient due to shading or insect damage. How long have the potatoes been growing and what is their maturity? It could be that the plants are starting to die off naturally because they're at the end of their life. My Red Norlands have been in the ground since mid April and are starting to die off and dry down now while other later varieties are still going strong.

On the other hand, overwatering could be drowning the roots and causing stress on the plants. Depending on your soil type, you should be watering every third day or so. Water long and deep when you do water. I usually let mother nature do the watering no matter how hot it gets(mid 80s here the past week). I only water when we hit drought conditions. It's always better to under water than over water.

Good luck with your taters!
djonesc
Original Author
15 years ago
hey farmerboybill ....

thank you for the insight ... i was wondering about those yellow leaves being a harbinger of *not good news* ... i have not gardened for, at least, eight years and have forgotten a lot, as well, my zone/location has changed ... anyway, the yellowing leaves could be from over-watering ... sometimes the tops of the potatoes droop from the heat and the first thing i want to do is: water .... water .... water ... and, i do!

in the past couple of days, i've *strawed* the garden in the hope of keeping some of the moisture in the ground, so we shall see ... i live in the desert of washington state and it hardly rains in the summer ... lots of t-storms, but not so much actual rain ......

the potatoes are kinda newly planted ... we did not put the garden in until around 12 june, so they are almost ready to flower (checked at 7 this morning and still just buds) ... it's going to be hot today so they may just bloom ...

again, thank you for your help ... darlene
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