You are certainly free to do as you wish... But, having openened the topic for opinions, here's mine for your consideration... Seems like it would be easiest (and free) to just squash the 5 bugs and their eggs. You've already done the hard part - finding them. I assume you are growing potatoes to save money or to have fresh organic ones. The $ you spent on Sevin is probably more than the cost of any potatoes you might lose by not using it. If you want to eat food that had carbaryl on it, it seems easier to just buy them and leave the chemicals to the professionals. You could investigate a companion plant for the potatoes that would attract a predator of the beetles. Whatever you decide, best of luck to you and your potatoes! Here is a link that might be useful: Sevin is not an entity I wish to support or perpetuate

Hi All, this year I had two potato patches. One at home that the soil test results said nothing needed, and a borrowed neighbors field that had been fallow since 1965. The field lays wet every year until about the end of May till it dries down. The soil test came back deficient in everything except manganese. The field received 10-10-10 and gypsum. The home patch got trenched while the field only got shallow tilled and taters planted just into the top three inches of dirt. I spent one hundred twenty bucks just on 'spoiled' hay from a farmer to hill the field taters. I learned a lot from these two different methods. Most taters in the field drowned from to much rain. The survivors made it all worth the effort. Red Pontiac withstood the rain the best, most all the different whites perished. On average the taters hilled with hay per plant gave much larger and outnumbered the taters hilled at home with dirt. At least two to one. On average the home taters came in at five lbs. per plant versus ten lbs per plant with hay. The plan for next year is for the home garden is to trench and plant the taters with dirt. Once started for the first hilling I will use hay with a light coating of soil. Then the second hilling with hay again and another light coating of soil. The soil removed to make the trenches should give me about one foot and a half for hill purposes. The expense for hay was due to poor planning. This year there is much spoiled hay due to the rain. So I called several farmers looking for free hay. I hit the jackpot with one farmer who gave me over two hundred bales. Just I had to load and pickup. For the field I am tilling several new rows and each row is getting the bales lined up intact to rot in place for next year. Hopefully next year I can spread the rotted hay down the middle to plant and move it back in for hilling. This is my plan for next year. I will see how well that works and let everybody know. Best regards to all.

If you want a compact sweet potato, Amish Bush Porto Rico does pretty well. It is a variant of the old Porto Rico. My personal favorite is Bradshaw aka Mahon. It is a a very good general purpose sweet potato that produces a good crop even in short season areas. Most important, they are much better flavored and have better texture than Georgia Jet. I've also had very good results with Covington which is a recent release that produces much higher quality sweet potatoes than industry standards like Beauregard. Sandhill's business is first come first serve. This is why it is important to order early. It is not a matter of being on a waiting list, you will be on a waiting list if you order from virtually any sweet potato supplier. Get your order in early and Sandhill will almost always ship slips in a 2 week window timed for your location. Mahon is also available from Johnny's this year so if you are ordering from them, consider getting sweet potato plants too.

Washington Farmers Market, downtown on the square, Thursdays from 5:00 - 7:00, has fresh garden produce (local & brought in), homemade baked goods, salsa, & noodles, plant starts, divisions, and cut flowers, and sometimes live music. The salsa contest was last week. There is a second market on Sunday afternoon - less well attended - to move the things that didn't sell on Thursday. How many vendors? between 12 and 20, depending on the time of year. Someone writes a follow up article for the newspaper telling what goodies were offered. Many of our vendors accept the food coupons that low income people can get for fresh produce purchases. The market has been there for at least 5 or 6 years (probably longer), and some local farmers plant specifically for that purpose - things like various colors and flavors of peppers, white eggplant, tomatillos and such. Hope this gives you some ideas to help your market grow.