Garden Update

The north bed. This is the Sunpeach plant.

It's been about a month since I last posted and that's because our tomatoes aren't doing the best. This morning I ripped up the north bed, even though there was new growth and possible tomatoes to come because the blight wasn't too far behind. My logic was why wait for a few small tomatoes to hopefully ripen when I could go ahead and get started on some greens and lettuces for the fall.

Over the past month I've been trying to save these tomato plants but nothing seems to work. It's been a rainy and humid year, so the blight just spreads no matter what. I did slow it down, but then the squirrels arrived. In less than a day all of our green, almost ready to ripen tomatoes were stolen from their vines and eaten by rude, thieves. So now, there are new tomatoes beginning but their branches are full of blight and by the time they ripen they will be half rotten anyway. So I pulled the plants. It was hard to do, but something that needed to be done.

The south bed is doing a little bit better in regards to blight.

Squash bugs!

There are small amounts of it on the bottoms of the plants, but I've given up pulling those leaves. Now I've been using that Fertilome spray, which seems to affect the insects and other wildlife very minimally. I tried spraying it on some squash bugs and they seemed unbothered by it, even a few hours later. So that's a good sign, except those bugs are still there, I guess.

The butternut squash is still growing baby squash and right now we have at least eight fully grown squash we are letting age a bit on the vine so we can store them overwinter. We

South bed. 

have a minor problem with some squash bugs, but now that Ryan knows what they are and what their eggs look like (little black dots on the underside of squash leaves, usually in perfect little rows) we can combat them. But right now, our squash plant is going crazy so a few bugs won't hurt. We just can't let them get out of control.

Good sized muskmelon

I picked our first cantaloupe last week. The excess rain this year helped that one right along. Our muskmelon was sweet, juicy and the texture was just perfect, not like store bought. It was a pretty good size, too. There are three or four more out on the vine, but that last one is gonna be small. That's okay though, I'm still excited for it. Sometimes smaller fruit is better.

Over the past couple weeks Ryan and I have been trying to preserve as much food as we can. My mother's friend Annie has an apple tree that her family can't pick because they have disabilities and can't go climb a ladder and pick the apples, so we do it. This year we got nine crates of apples. I am not sure what kind of apples they are, but I do know they make great apple sauce and apple butter.

I've also taken up pickling. A lady Ryan works with brought a bunch (like a LOT) of cucumbers to
work for whoever so Ryan brought them home and I pickled them. I did whole dill, spears and chips as well as some bread and butter pickles. I added some red pepper and chilis to a few of the jars in hopes those will be spicy. After the brine cooled it smelled spicy, so there is hope.

The dill recipe I found is simple and it's actually made for dilling green tomatoes but I figured it Sean Brock's Heritage, and the recipe is Dilled Green Tomatoes on page 230. If anyone is interested in this recipe, please ask. I'll send it to you.

could work on pickles, too. And it did. I pulled out a jar at a party a couple weeks ago and everyone said they were good on their pulled pork sandwiches. I plan to use them for catering in the upcoming months when we do pulled pork buffets. I think that will be a nice touch to our catering, don't you? Here's the book I got the recipe from:

So, although I've been a canning fool, none of that stuff has actually come from my own garden. Our tomatoes were stolen, the ones that weren't were killed by a nasty fungus and we haven't gotten enough of anything else to can. It's a little depressing but I feel like we will be prepared for next year. At least, as prepared as we can be!

In other news, I was on Facebook last night and saw a friend who posted a picture of a pressure cooker, never used for $50. Originally $100. I jumped on that! Brought it home last night and figured out it can be used as a cooker or a pressure canner! Steal! I can now plan a garden next year and not worry about if I have the equipment to can it all. Now I do! I think Ryan and I are going to mess around with canning beans, soup and other stuff like that. Stay tuned!

Using Fertilome For Blight

I decided to use an organic fungicide to help with the blight. It was taking over every plant it touched and Ryan and I didn't want it to go any further. We decided we would rather use a fungicide than lose all of our hard work to a stupid spore. I went to Jackson's Greenhouse and asked for help.

New growth on my 'Chef's Choice' orange
tomato plants that had lots of blight

You can see where the leaves died where
they were affected with blight

The lady there directed me to a product called Fertilome. She said it wasn't organic, but I did some research and the chemicals used in the product are considered organic. She kept telling me I had a bug problem from what she could see in my photos. But, I tried telling her I had talked to a few different people about it and I'd done a lot of research and she wouldn't listen. I finally showed her my original photo of the blight and she changed her tune and said maybe she was wrong. Duh.

Well, I bought the fungicide and a pH tool. I am going to take in a cup of soil for Jackson's to test for me since they do it for free. I thought free was better than spending $20 on the kit myself, but I haven't made it back because I've been busy. I have plans to take the soil in tomorrow and I will let you know what I find out.

The butternut squash is growing along the fence quickly

When I got home, I mixed up some of the fungicide with water as the bottle directed, then put it in a spray bottle. The directions say to lightly spray the affected leaves, but not so much that the leaves drip. I lightly misted all the affected plants, and tried not to breathe in the chemicals. Although they are organic chemicals, they are still chemicals and should be treated as such.

I sprayed three days ago. The photos here are taken today, three days after the application of the fungicide. I feel like it worked. The leaves that had blight on them are now brown and shriveled, as if the fungicide killed the blight, but also killed the leaf in the process. But, the stems don't seem to look any different and there is new growth on the top of the plants. Also, the blight hasn't spread like it had been before. Last week, before the Fertilome, I noticed entire branches overcome in only a day or two. Now, it's a spot here and there and mostly on the tips of the leaves. I feel like it's been a success so far, but still have to wait and see what happens.

Coriander hanging in the basement

I was scared of using the fungicide because I read online that some bugs would die as a result. Ugh, that was my biggest hesitation in using the fungicide, but I also read that it was only in the first 24 hours that it would kill bugs, so I tried to make it so when bees were out and around, it would be the last 12 hours of the 24. So, I sprayed it on around 6 p.m. when I hardly see any bees or other bugs around. Also, I've been out to the garden and there are still tons of insects buzzing around, so it must not have done too much damage. I'm not sure, and it's hard to tell. But it is something I think about and try to affect as little as possible. I read where you can cover your plants with a sheet or some other cover for 24 hours, then remove them.

The butternut squash and the musk melon plants are doing well. The butternut has vined out and we have 2-3 small squash and one big one so far. There are a bunch of flowers, too, so it must be doing well. The muskmelon is producing, too. We have at least two melons, one of them is a bit bigger than the other. That plant is growing up the fence, too, and there are many possibilities for fruit to appear. The lakota squash isn't doing much and neither is the zucchini. Hopefully, after we get the soil tested at Jackson's, we can get those turned around.

I went ahead and harvested the coriander. Some of it was still green and seems to be taking forever to turn brown. But, some of it is brown, so I decided to cut it all and hang it downstairs and see what happens. There is so much of it, I'm sure it will be ok if it all doesn't turn brown, but from the plants I hung last week, it seems like they will all eventually turn brown. 

Now that we have a blank spot in the garden, Ryan and I are going to save the spot for fall planting. We want to do more greens and lettuces. So for the time being, we are going to leave it alone. 

Once a week I've been feeding all of the plants in the garden the seaweed fertilizer Ryan bought at Jackson's. For some reason it was hard for us to find this stuff anywhere. It's available online, but hard to find in the stores and nonexistent at stores like Lowe's or Home Depot. All they have is Miracle Grow. There are all kinds of brands, but the one we are using is called Maxicrop Liquid Seaweed. I hear that fish emulsions work just as well. Our 'Tumbling Toms' plant on our front porch was looking pretty sad and had stopped producing any fruit. I poured this on it and by the next week there were three new branches with blooms on them. It's been almost three weeks since the first time I put any on it and I've gotten 3-4 tomatoes off of it and there are even more to come. I definitely recommend getting some of this if your garden seems a little puny. This is much better than Miracle Grow, and the results are immediate. It's a little pricey, but worth the price, I think. You add one ounce to a gallon of water and I did about an ounce between the two garden beds and a quart on the 'Tumbling Toms' and the rest of my flowers on the front porch. It works on those, too, in case you're wondering.

I plan to keep using the seaweed once a week and I may spray one more time for blight. I think after that, if I continue to water carefully, I won't have to worry about the blight. At least I hope.