LATE SEASON IS HERE IN AROOSTOOK COUNTY! At the end of August we have our sure signs. Breathtaking Cosmos Flowers are now in bloom. And so are Sunflowers – including the one hiding behind this jungle of Cosmos.
These two Flowers are a sign of the times and late-blooming members of our Beneficial Insect Flower Beds that we planted last Spring in and around our fields of Organic Seed Potatoes. https://www.woodprairie.com/category/the-organic-garden/certified-organic-maine-certified-seed-potatoes/ These Flowers nourish and give refuge to the Beneficial Insects who help to keep in check troublesome insect pests of Potatoes.
And there are further signs. Some of the trees are starting to turn color. Local Seed Potato farmers are killing their seed crops and getting ready to begin Potato Harvest.
We arrest the growth of our Organic Certified Seed Potatoes while tubers are still in their juvenile-stage. This practice of ‘early killing’ provides maximum vigor in the tubers. And that translates into the highest yields in the next generation – that would be the Organic Certified Seed tubers we’ll be shipping to you next Spring if you buy from us.
As organic farmers we kill our Potato plants (‘Tops’) with propane flame. Our conventional neighbors spray broad-spectrum ‘Diquat’ Herbicide, which in recent years has been rebranded as ‘Reglone’ which sounds less like close-cousin ‘Paraquat.’ Out West, custom applicators apply Sulfuric Acid to kill down the big fields of conventional Potatoes for scheduling harvest. Caleb, Megan & Jim
