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Fungus of the day: Thing growing with the potato
Welcome to the inaugural fungus of the day post. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
urbpan I blame you for this one, and drhoz I don't think you can escape either.
Summer is not the time to grow potatoes in a pot or elsewhere, but when a spud in the cupboard looked past it I shoved it in a pot regardless of the season. With the warm wet weather my single potato plant would have been heavily assaulted by snails and slugs, but I broke out the allegedly environmentally and pet-friendly pellets (that double as fertilizer when they break down), and that seemed to keep them at bay this time. I've been feeding it with liquid fertilizer, keeping up the water (possibly too well), spraying it with bug stuff when other bugs started eating it, and when that failed spraying it with the garlic-flavoured bug stuff which did work. Vampire bugs? It was a bit touch and go, but it seemed to survive both my attentions and my neglect.
I've also been casually mulching it with the odd handful of fibrous algae I've been clearing from the pond most days. Lately that's included a lot of baby water snails that I'm hoping won't adapt to terrestrial living. Don't worry, there are *plenty* of snails left in the pond. I've also given the potato the water I've used to clean the pond filter, so there's some fish pee in the mix too.
One of the pictures showed the algae better than the fungus:
Some interesting possibilities for future photos in there. Coming soon: Pretty algae of the day?
New shoots have cropped up in the pot recently so I guess that's the baby potatoes from the original seed potato sprouting in turn. The point is not so much to grow potatoes but rather have a potato plant that I canlove nurture and keep alive for as long as possible and then enjoy the Easter egg hunt when the top dies off. A garden in miniature, that I had a chance to keep alive. Unfortunately it did add to the sense of failure when it looked very much like the bugs were going to get their way.
And now, fungus:
There will be more fruiting bodies over the next few days, as there are plenty of patches of filaments around. I haven't a clue what this is.
Somehow I don't think fungi are good for spuds, so that might just be the end of my little crop. Still, I may as well enjoy the fungus while it lasts. Either that or some nice person will tell me how to KILL IT KILL IT DEAD. Sorry, that would be my Irish ancestry leaping to the defence of the 'tatie crop.
urbpan I blame you for this one, and drhoz I don't think you can escape either. Summer is not the time to grow potatoes in a pot or elsewhere, but when a spud in the cupboard looked past it I shoved it in a pot regardless of the season. With the warm wet weather my single potato plant would have been heavily assaulted by snails and slugs, but I broke out the allegedly environmentally and pet-friendly pellets (that double as fertilizer when they break down), and that seemed to keep them at bay this time. I've been feeding it with liquid fertilizer, keeping up the water (possibly too well), spraying it with bug stuff when other bugs started eating it, and when that failed spraying it with the garlic-flavoured bug stuff which did work. Vampire bugs? It was a bit touch and go, but it seemed to survive both my attentions and my neglect.
I've also been casually mulching it with the odd handful of fibrous algae I've been clearing from the pond most days. Lately that's included a lot of baby water snails that I'm hoping won't adapt to terrestrial living. Don't worry, there are *plenty* of snails left in the pond. I've also given the potato the water I've used to clean the pond filter, so there's some fish pee in the mix too.
One of the pictures showed the algae better than the fungus:
Some interesting possibilities for future photos in there. Coming soon: Pretty algae of the day?
New shoots have cropped up in the pot recently so I guess that's the baby potatoes from the original seed potato sprouting in turn. The point is not so much to grow potatoes but rather have a potato plant that I can
And now, fungus:
There will be more fruiting bodies over the next few days, as there are plenty of patches of filaments around. I haven't a clue what this is.
Somehow I don't think fungi are good for spuds, so that might just be the end of my little crop. Still, I may as well enjoy the fungus while it lasts. Either that or some nice person will tell me how to KILL IT KILL IT DEAD. Sorry, that would be my Irish ancestry leaping to the defence of the 'tatie crop.