the only time i had potato rot was when my potatoes got flood right when i was trying to hardening the skins. they were flooded 4 times 5 days apart and it was very loamy soil that retained water well. i lost the whole crop. i now live in an arid climate with well drained soil and we leave the spuds in the ground untill after the first good frost. last night i dug some Yukon Gold and got some 3 1/2" potatoes. yummy! we are also growing Pontiac and LaSota. this is our first year to grow La Sota. i like the Pontiac better then the Yukon Gold but the Pontiac is a long season potato and our season can be as short as three months. however that has not stopped the potatoes from getting ripe. we stop the water about 10 days before we harvest to let the skins harden. WM

tcs -- This will be an interesting experiment. Having steel-sided raised beds in Portland I'll be interested to see what you find. Folks have opined that our beds do so well in part because they heat up quickly in the sun, but I've never measured the effect. I have a few thoughts about your testing... An important variable will be the depth of the measurement - ideally at least 4-6 inches to replicate the root zone - within a conventional bed about 16-18 inches tall. The depth matters to somewhat isolate the effect of the bed walls from the top surface heating - which the non-bed soil would also experience. There should be equal amounts of water applied to the bed and non-bed test sites so that soil water content isn't too diverse a variable. I think the soil in and out of the bed should be the same to eliminate the soil and saturation variables. Another interesting factor would be measurements of temperature at several distances from the walls of the beds, and the directions the walls are facing. South-facing walls ought to get the most radiant sun heating, while cooling ought to be uniform on all sides. Another factor would be the material and thickness of the walls. The included link shows that wood (pine/oak) has a similar thermal conductivity to soil with organic matter. Saturated soil has a higher conductivity, with comparable to concrete, or much higher (depending I suppose on water content for saturation). A wood-sided bed and a brick/concreted sided bed would be an interesting comparison. (The thermal conductivity of our steel beds is about 300x that of wood...) This will be interesting. Looking forward to what you find. Here is a link that might be useful: Thermal Conductivities

Ciao Martin, Not really, my figs are not bare yet. Everyday about 3 or 4 ripen, I usually go out in the early morning and pick those and eat them right away. There are new figs popping out of the branches. I don't know how these will fare or if they will ripen, but I have about 2 dozen yet that will probably ripe before the end of the year. Last night we went to 46 degrees, I had to bring my Bougainvillea in and set them in their winter positions upstairs in a warm bright unused bedroom. Fall is coming quickly, I heard of a frost warning last night in Upstate New York. Yuck!!! don't like this. Also brought in my Carob tree and my Caper bushes. What alot of work. Oleander and It Jasmine will come in next. My Geraniums can stay out a couple more weeks, but then they'll have to come in soon too. Ciao Maggie

getting the Salk-Sabine polio vaccine at school riding the big yellow school bus- one ancient driver named Mr Vaughan, no air conditioning, no seat belts, the beautiful & sophisiticated "big girls" (high schoolers) in circle skirts with sweaters or cotton blouses, bobby socks & saddle shoes or penny loafers, chiffon scarves tied jauntily around their necks, hair in sprayed beehives. Papa (our grandfather) buying stalks of sugar cane from the door-to-door fruit & vegetable peddler. Papa would cut the canes into short lengths & smash one end with his hammer to make it easier to get the "sugar". that very same Papa giving us the few chewy chocolate candies in every bag of chewy caramals, smashing a giant peppermint stick with his hammer at Christmas, sharing coconut candies from a bag; they looked like little haystacks, & they had hard icing shells of pink, white, yellow, & chocolate. candy in big glass jars outside every gas station; the jars usually said "Tom's" or something. I remember they always had coconut candy-I forget the name-that was a pink/white/yellow striped slab in a cellophane wrapper, , peanut butter logs, tootsie rolls. seems like those jars also held peanut-butter crackers or cheese crackers. staying outside all day, coming in only when one of our parents blew the car horn. raising the flag & taking it down at school fire drills "duck & cover" the alphabet, capitols & lower case, shown on big cards above the blackboard. In first & second grades, the letters were printed. Third grade marked the transition to cursive letters. My Weekly Reader. When I was in 2nd grade, our teacher challenged us to figure out how to say a proper name in a Weekly Reader story. We tried every phonetic "sounding-out" technique we could, & she finally laughed told us this man would be amazed to hear the things we were calling him. izzenhoover eesenhiver essinhoer The name was Eisenhower. Dick & Jane & Sally, Mother & Father, Spot & Fluff.