Defeated

You know when you have those days that you feel you are failing as a parent, when the children are being so awful, and you wonder why, knowing darn well anything they do 'wrong' is ultimately a result of something you did or didn't do ( at least according to all experts).....and it just makes you want to throw your hands up and quit caring? Or cry?

Well today I have failed the garden, or at least feel that I have. Do they have Garden Protective Services?? They should, LOL!

THE DREADED SQUASH VINE BORER! I had stopped checking for eggs thinking it was too late in the season. Wrong. Stopped spraying Dead Bug at the base of the plants. Big mistake. This morning I went out to give the plants a drink of fish emulsion and discovered the destruction. Now here's the thing: I planted Hubbards as a lure, I planted the squash a few weeks late in an attempt to avoid the buggers, AND I planted Butternut as a back-up. Well don't you know I have no fruit formation on either the Hubbard or Butternut and the damn borers have left them alone, so much for the sacrificial Hubbard and back-up Butternut. Below are my poor squash babies, their demise likely just days away. One Delicata, one Acorn.

I did have foil under a couple of the plants, and from what I can tell they have not been bored yet, but I will not get my hopes up as the larva are clearly just getting started. I stuck pins through the bases of the plants with the tell tale "saw dust" at the openings. The plastic mulch over the bed doesn't allow for any mid-vine root formation. Double edged-sword as it seems to be the thing that has allowed these plants to mature in a timely manner.

So, to sum it all up I have a garden suffering from Late Blight and Squash Vine Borers, and it has mainly gone undiscovered and untreated due to neglect. My days have been filled with too much running around, beach going, and hiding from the heat of the sun, and not enough time spent peering closely at every plant watching for any sign of pest and disease that has settled in. And of course the morning was spent dealing with the borers instead of spraying the tomatoes, so now they will go another day with out protection from flying blight spores. If I don't spray them tonight someone please come through cyberspace and slap me OK?

Damn Blight

I don't have time to post a picture (running off to activities), but this morning I found late blight on my precious Sungold tomato. I ran out of Serenade (anti-fungul spray) last week and have been trying to find some since. Looks as though I am too late. There were some spores on one of the leaves, so it is just a matter of time before all will require being ripped out. Now I am kicking myself for not buying any old spray, is it better to have non-organic tomatoes or no tomatoes? Then of course there are the bugs, birds, and bees to think about....

The Canning Learning Curve

I may be thirty-something years old, but this whole canning thing is new to me. No one in my family canned, and prior to this year's garden I had only made jam once or twice in all my years.

It seems as though the learning curve for canning can be quite steep. As I mentioned in an older post the first time I did pickles that required a salt soak I added it (the salt) to the recipe, and used additional slat for the soak, OOPS! I still find the directions on pickles unclear, maybe it's just my Mommy brain. Anyway, this weekend I had a couple more snafu's: I learned that tomatoes lose a lot of volume after being peeled and chopped (read as 'couldn't complete canning recipe due to lack of tomatoes'), and after following a Sweet Pickle Relish recipe to the tee I ended up with 6 half-pint jars instead of the "about 8 half-pints" it was supposed to make. Hmm.

And lets not forget all the jars of Apricot-Pepper Jelly sitting on that shelf that taste like a spoonful of cider vinegar- yuck! That was the recipe, and for once no fault of my own. (I have at least found that it makes a decent dip for breaded chicken or a tasty marinade when watered down with some canola oil), so not a total loss.

So I guess what I am asking to all you seasoned canners out there, when does this get easier? When will I stop making so many mistakes? When will I be able to throw out all of those jars of salty Zucchini Pickles and Apricot-Pepper Jelly that will never get eaten? (I just can not bear to do it right now, too much time, sweat, and money tied up in those jars!!)

Friday's Garden Buzzz

The muskmelon vines are finally starting to run. This is the horse manure compost pile experiment....still male flowers only from what I can tell. Four varieties of the melon seeds I planted were 75-80 day varieties (Green Nutmeg, Early Silverline, Noir des Carmes and Savor Charentais); the other, Eel River takes 90-100 days to mature. Back on May 25 I did a Melons and Beans Post (here) on the compost pile and dog kennel sowings/transplants. Here we are 81 days later, no melons in sight. Some sowings were seeds, others were seedlings 4-6 weeks old at the time of transplant. WTF?!? The only female flowers I have seen are on the 2 plants in a container- WAY past the 75-80 days (photo below). These were transplants and are running up the kennel walls.....maybe the plastic mulch has made the difference in these two vines? I don't see how I will get any ripe fruit which is so dissapointing seeing that I sowed 5 varieties of melons, I was really looking forward to homegrown melons.

Female blossom on mystery melon vine.

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Acorn Squash, the only variety setting fruit thus far. Other varieties are baby Blue Hubbard, Bush Delicata, and Butternut.
(All squash varieties are 90 days out from planting.)
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I have been watching my eggplants flower, hoping I would get a purple or green variety out of some of the seedlings. The seed packet I purchased was a mix of four varieties, and the first three plants to set fruit have all produced white eggplants. I am quite excited to finally have a purple one growing, YES! Notice the variation in leaf vein color in the plants below.....next year I will just check the color in the leaves as this seems to indicate the color of the fruit (and thus variety). Mystery solved!-well not completely since I still don't know what the green ones would look like. Sigh.

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The true BUZZZZZ around the garden......

Lastly, a sure sign that Fall is just around the corner:

Sedum getting ready to bloom.

On that note, have a great weekend everyone, we plan on perfecting our 'beach bum' act!

Todays Harvest, Free Seed Offer

If you could have seen me this afternoon picking away in the garden I would have had a satisfied smile on my face. In my harvest basket today there was my first eggplant (EVER!!), my first red-ripe Carmen pepper, some zucchini, beans, and tomatoes. All these goodies weighed in at 5.6 lbs! I feel the urge to make more oven-dried tomatoes (pictured below), but then that leaves few for fresh eating. What to do?

Johnny's sent out a letter to it's customers, in it are some suggestions for crops to plant now as well as an offer for some free seeds. The offer is in bold print in the close-up picture along with some of their suggestions for sowing now. The letter also mentions the late blight disaster, and how to use row covers as season extenders. I am posting this just for you Thomas (over at A Growing Tradition)!

I have some baby acorn squash growing and the carrots finally seem to be happy to grow in my garden, I will actually need to do some thinning soon. I must go check when sweet potatoes become ready for harvest, I am dying to dig down and see what (if anything) has grown. I know it is way too early, but I can anticipate right?? :)

Farm Talk and Food Preservation

I have not been good about snapping pictures these last few days, my memory card is just about full. Anyway, yesterday brought a visit to the farm just down the road for some corn and peaches. I threw the kernels of a dozen ears in the fridge for another day and bought 12 lbs of "seconds" for peach pie filling. The peaches insisted on being used up that day or more than a spot here and there would have been bruised and rotten. I will have to go back and score some more of those peaches soon, I still need to make some peach and pepper preserves. I love putting all this food up for winter......those peaches will make a quick delicious pie or cobbler come Jaunuary!

I had a very interesting talk with the farmer while I was shopping.....for starters he is against all things farmer's market and CSA related. He feels they take advantage of the naive paying customer (the CSA's) and that the markets and CSA's take away from his roadside business. All of the folks 'pretending' to be farmers (i.e. don't farm at least 5 acres of land) don't belong at a booth in his opinion and he doesn't understand why people are OK not seeing the farm behind the food. Oddly enough he sells produce grown by someone else and sells his to others, so I wasn't quite sure why he had such a problem with this- peaches, corn, and apples are his gig. He also wants people to realize you "need to save the farmer, not the farm". Thought provocing stuff.

He also mentioned I should get ready for the produce to become less available and much more expensive. All the rain ruined/prevented most succession plantings and has lowered yields over all. (Guess I should be stocking up on the corn and zucchini now while the gettin' is good!) It's always nice to see the face behind the farm and hearing his views on the world of farming was interesting.....usually we just talk about how we like to cook our corn!

On a more mundane note I just came in from doing a foliar feed and I LOVE my new pump sprayer! What a difference that made. The harvest bucket has a nice heft to it, plenty of tomatoes and cukes, a zucchini and some lettuce for those BLT's. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Bean Bugs, CSA, and Sunflowers

I have been picking these fuzzy things off my beans by the dozen. May be time for some spray action.

The first sunflower, "Bashful", a dwarf variety from Johnny's Seeds. Next year I will be sure to buy some with more color to add to the mix in the whiskey barrels. These are in with the nasturtium and winter squash, described here in an older post.

CSA pick-up yesterday, I haven't been keeping up with my weekly records here.... the share has been a let down the last couple of weeks though it was better this time. I don't know that I will be doing a share at this farm next year, though I will consider doing one elsewhere. Last week my basil was bad the day after pick-up, and I have the same problem with other items in the past. The last two pick-ups were coming in at a $14.00 value at market by my calculations, way under the $19/week average I pay for the season......AND they charge you their market price for any extras you pick-up, so much for a share-holder's discount. The positives have been good tasting berries and a nice variety of produce (not all greens, kale, etc..)

Today's share:

• pint blueberries
• sm. container cherry tomatoes (1/2 pint?)
• corn, 3 ears
• 1 summer squash
• 1/4 lb greens
• spring onions, 1 bunch
• bunch of parsley
• 1 cuke
• 3 peaches

Oh, and I made oven-dried tomatoes yesterday with the cherries and plums from the garden. They look yummy, I am really wishing I had a Food Saver right now to pack them for the freezer. I am too lazy (hot) to post a picture right now.

Recent Harvests

Another couple of pounds from the potato patch, super-tiny shallots, and some beans'n greens.

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My biggest tomato harvest yet, guess I should go peruse those recipes I posted recently......


The shallots were dying back and needed to come out. The cloves are so small, can I just separate put them back in for next year? They almost aren't worth saving to eat.

One of my blogging friends is doing an e-book give away over at Life Throught The Cracks. She is concerned with the possibility of food shortages in our future and wants to promote food security, head on over and check it out!

Bird and Butterfly Garden

The butterfly garden is in full gear. The coneflowers have really filled in this year, you can barely see the turtlehead and aster growing in between, and the birdbath is completely hidden from view. Things are getting a little wild in there, maybe next year I will add to the chaos and scatter some wildflower seeds and see if anything manages to take hold. The milkweed seeds I sowed months ago in the kitchen garden never came to fruition. Oh well, better luck next year I guess.

For some reason I can not keep a butterfly bush alive in my yard. I have planted four bushes, in two different spots, in two different years. What gives? Aren't these things known for being hard to kill? And invasive? Some species are banned in Massachusetts. (In a covert operation some buddleia may have been delivered to an out of State address and smuggled across the border, and maybe they were planted in my garden, maybe.) Why go to all this trouble for the darned things to not come back the next year? Ah butterfly bush, the thorn in my side.

So tell me, what do the butterflies flock to in your garden?

Today's Happenings

So today has been interesting. We started the morning off blueberry picking. The farm was perfect- they do p.y.o. raspberries and blueberries, plus raise animals for meat. I had intended on going raspberry picking, but after traveling 35 minutes to get there it was blueberries that were ripe. A bit disappointed, but no big deal. The folks were some of the nicest people I have run into in this type of establishment, DuFort Farms over in Rehobeth.

So off we went with our milk jugs tied around our necks. We were escorted to suggested row and off we went! The kids discovered a cat along the way and that was the end of their picking, but it was just as well since the little one was eating three for every one that went in her jug despite the continuous scolding. We left with 5.5 lbs of blues and just under a pound of breakfast sausage, all for around $22.00- not bad!

This is by far the largest blueberry inventory I have ever had..... 2 quarts went into the freezer, 3 cups will be going into a dessert, Blueberry Galette with Lemon Ice Cream, and I am not sure yet about the rest.

Look at this little piece of gorgeousness! An heirloom dwarf glad from Old House Gardens, Boone maybe?? Anyway, the darlings are so pricey I only ordered one bulb, but it is stunning. I love the blue pollen against the red.

I came to the realization tonight while making bread and butter pickles that I made a crucial error when making the zucchini pickles. I taste tested one while still warm and found it unappealing and salty. Yeah, that's because the pickling salt that was meant to only be used in a water soak went into the liquid pickling mixture instead. OOPS! Not sure if this will affect the whole acidity balance for storage/spoilage.....hoping not! After perusing more recipes they will taste more like a dill (which I can only stomach while preggers), luckily it was only 1/4 pickling salt for something like 6 pints of pickles. Should I chuck these babies or risk food poisoning, lol!?!