CPBs are a mystery to me, one year there are none and the next they go hog wild. Some years I have ladybugs out earlier than others relative to the CPB but don't see much correlation to the severity of the CPB problems from year to year. too bad I can't turn the chickens loose in the spuds, they'd do more damage than the CPBs. Dr. Whitney Cranshaw from CSU once explained to me an insect that they have problems with on tomato along the Front Range of CO. The appearance of the insects had everything to do with south winds at a certain time of the spring or early summer, no winds, no problem that year. Sorry, can't remember the insect. As far as educating people about any growing method I TRY to shut up unless asked and watch for responses both verbal and non before proceeding. You can lead a horse to water you know. Ever try to force a horse to drink? Why try knowing what the result may be. The modern organic movement is still very new with relatively little empiric testing to serve as it's foundation but there is an enormous amount of anecdotal evidence. That is not to say it has no merit, it most certainly does and deserves study. Until organic has a broader, more solid foundation I cannot preach to anyone as to it's superiority over conventional practices. However, if I find something that works or find that someone has I'm happy to try it myself or share the information. My fruit orcharding is in the slow process of converting, hopefully to completely organic, It will take time as there can be severe disease and insect pressures and I make mistakes. And then there is the weather.

I think it's unlikely. Powdery mildew is caused by alot of different pathogens. Pathogens that can be different genera, species, or strains of the same species. And each of these can be very specific as to what it attacks and lives on. So for example powdery mildew on peppers is caused by diff organism than powdery mildew on clover. Symptoms may be similar, or at least to the naked eye. So I'd suspect that "powdery mildew" wouldn;t "jump" from a plant like clover to other veggies.

3 feet above the raised bed doesn't sound unusual to me, so I don't think the problem is excess nitrogen. I had a similar thing happen to me the first time I grew potatoes several years ago. I prepared a 3.5 diameter 3-foot tall "tower" that was open to the earth on the bottom by filling it with a foot of well cured compost and good garden soil before planting my tubers. I filled it with a loose mix of compost and straw that was at least 18 inches deep after hilling several times. The plants grew vigorously, but when they began to die down and I went to harvest, I found only a handful of tiny tubers. Later that year when I decided to dismantle the tower, I found the base filled with roots from my maple trees. I suspect the tree roots robbed the potatoes of nutrients and adequate moisture. May sound weird, but I have found that tree roots can destroy a raised bed. I now grow all my potatoes in large containers and get good yields (10 to 1 or better).

Johnny, I don't keep track of it that way. I'm not all scientifically oriented like you guys are. I don't weigh them. I don't remember how many pounds of seed potatoes I planted. I'm just happy when I get to start digging potatoes, and even happier when I finish because I always find myself digging in hot weather. My criteria is "did we harvest enough to eat?" and if the answer is yes, we had a good year. If the answer is "How are we ever going to eat all those potatoes?" we had a great year. If the answer is that I look at the piles of potatoes and want to cry when I think of all the potato peeling I'll be doing, then we had an awesome year. This year? We had an awesome year and I am promising myself I won't plant so many next year (and I always say that, and always plant too many the next year anyway). My favorite part of digging potatoes isn't even about the potatoes. It is about looking at all the newly available space that has opened up and now is ready for a succession planting of something else. I'm so swamped with processing the harvest of so many different veggies right now that I probably won't even get to do the succession planting for another week, but at least whenever I get a chance to plant, those raised beds will be ready and waiting. Dawn