Just giving in a little...
Not only do I have squash bugs, but I have Early Blight on my Amish Paste tomatoes.
I did it. I bought sprays.
I'm not happy about it, but it figures that when I decide to make the big pressure canner purchase to better preserve all my expected harvest, this happens. Well, this year I'm not having any of this cr@p, this is WAR!
I hustled the kids this morning to get to the nursery early and get my war waging supplies, but alas it was already too hot to treat the blight situation by the time we got back home at 9:30. I did brave the heat to go out and at least try and trim the squash bug egg situation and rid the squash bed of the garlic that was nearing harvest time to make treating easier.
Behind the sprays and the cute kid above are some "hedging my bed" (get it? LOL) plants. I went ahead and purchased a hybrid grape tomato and hybrid big tomatoes resistant to blight. I had to do it, I'm afraid of no tomatoes! I also have read repeatedly that squash bugs favor zucchini over all other squashes, so I bought some. Can you believe I don't ever plant zucchini? LOL and it still shows up on my counter somehow. What I thought was funny was that I couldn't just buy one, noooooo, it had to be a cell 3-pak. Upon arriving home I noticed there were two plants in each cell, equaling SIX zucchini seedlings. This is like the nursery/greenhouse planter's sick joke. I admit I'd do it too if I was a commercial planter, heehee! Anyway, I'm planning on these becoming the trap crop so ideally I can throw napalm at them and not my heirloom veggies!
Here's Loch reading out of his bug book while I harvest garlic. I still can't get this kid to handpick the bugs for me and throw into the soapy bucket, but he's good at pointing them out to me LOL.
Finding beauty in the war zone... "peek a boo Pansy!"
Finn is turning into my cameraman, now I actually have another photo with me in it!
By noon it was too hot to be outside any more so I retreated inside to hang the garlic and make bread for the kids' lunches this week, can you believe they are still in school here? Craziness, I say, or as Ribbit would say - it's un-American! Indeed.
My favorite harvest to look at, the garlic is now curing!
Saved the worst for last...
the Amish Paste bed... now has Early Blight.
I wanted to treat tonight with the organic fungicide I bought, but "they" are calling for thunderstorms, so I'll get at it first thing in the a.m.
Below is the Brandywine bed, looking good (knocking on a lot of wood these days). After last year and the bacterial wilt on the tomatoes I separated the tomatoes into 2 different areas, although this one is the most congested. I'm thinking I might treat preventatively anyway, I sure don't want anything to happen to these.
Speaking of thunderstorms, this is what is moving in as I just went to go look out the window...
It looked like this the other night too, but we got zip.
I'm exhausted. Even though I didn't really spend more than 90 minutes outside today, the heat did me in.
Next up, one of these! Blackberry Lemonade made with last years frozen blackberry juice with a splash of big girl vodka mixed in! Only a splash though, since I really want to finish a book tonight!
Just as I was getting ready to hit "publish" I noticed it's pouring outside, yay!
Man, you are getting hit from all sides! I would spray as well. Geez - who can even think about not having ANY tomatoes? Ack! I am glad I'm not in that heat, though. I wouldn't last five minutes. I can't believe how far ahead your season is. Wait! I forgot you have a 365 day season!
ReplyDeleteYour blackberry lemonade looks delish! Good luck on defending your crops. Sometimes it just feels like we're under attack from all directions! We've had ugly heat lately, but the last two days have been blessedly cool enough to weed about half the garden this morning, mow the lawn and get some actual cooking done while it didn't hurt to add heat to this un-air-conditioned house in Northern Indiana. Funny that it got hot enough to bolt the spinach and radishes, now so cool I'm weeking in long sleeves, and the tomatoes are just beginning to bloom! Weird weather all over.
ReplyDeleteGoldang, but you have trouble with those ^%&$ squash bugs! There are something that will better in the garden when you make the move up north! I don't think I've ever had a squash bug. (Knock on wood!)
ReplyDeleteFight for those tomatoes! I wouldn't give them up without a fight.
Hooray for your rain!
Sorry you're having squash & tomato issues. Haven't encountered any yet, but my Amish Paste is not blooming. Have any ideas why it isnt?
ReplyDeleteI'll confess- I broke down with a 'product' this weekend as well. Flea beetles had made swiss cheese of my eggplant. I hated to do it but, as you said- this is WAR!!
ReplyDeleteJudy
Wow bugs and blight and bad weather all in one year. You gotta do what you gotta do to get those veggies growing. So far I've only had to use soap and water on aphids and that was only on the rose bushes.
ReplyDeleteI hope your products work on the bugs and blight.
You're right. I can't believe y'all are still in school, but then again, you'll be laughing at us when we go back the first week of August...
ReplyDeleteRibbit
If it helps, anytime I had early blight I was still able to get a harvest on the paste tomatoes. It looks bad at first but as the season progressed they survived. After having late blight two years in a row it makes early blight seem like a piece of cake. Why do we have to constantly be fighting something? I am getting tired of it.
ReplyDeleteSusan, not quite 365 LOL, I can only have garlic in the beds through the winter, I'd have to move if I was expected to keep up this pace year round!
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Trailshome, enjoy some of that cool weather for me, and I'll have a blackberry lemonade for you!
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Mama Pea, I'm somewhat of a squash novice. Other than cukes, I've never grown any successfully because i never tried very hard. The first year my winter squash got either SVB or bacterial wilt so the whole plant collapsed overnight, and another year I only grew birdhouse gourds which were covered with squash bugs but who cared since we don't eat them... we still got about 250 of the darn things LOL
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rmgales, gosh, no idea, mine were the first to bloom, BUT the weather we have all been experiencing more than likely has to do with it. Extreme swings of temps and alternating too much rain with drought seems to be the norm. I don't know what part of W VA you are in but your profile says zone 6, I'm zone 8 so maybe you have nothing to worry about if the plants look healthy! Make sure they don't get too much nitrogen is all I can think of off-hand, too much of that will just make the leaves green and grow like crazy and not bloom or set fruit, good luck!
I love that you now have a camera man!
ReplyDeleteGood luck fighting (or shall I say WINNING) the war out there.
Judy, those darn flea beetles love eggplant. I plant eggplant all around my potatoes to keep them off the taters, I'll be darned if the eggplant still produces plenty even looking like it got a shotgun blast - too bad the squash wouldn't tolerate the bugs as well. We all have to do what we have to do this year apparently, 2011 is "roll with the sucker punches" year!
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Sparkless, that soap usually works really well on aphids! I sprayed some on a squash bug and it laughed at me and gave me the finger :)
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Ribbit, this is true! But I think schools a good place to be in August, it's too hot outside to play anyway.
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Jane, that's good to know. I am noticing that the early blight moves much slower, the stuff before that I thought was storm damage - it was probably early blight in retrospect. I think with late blight/fireblight the plants would be done for by now. The worst part with this weather is finding a good time to spray - it's either windy or storming or 100 degrees! I'm hoping at least this means next year will be a piece of cake, but I think I know better :)
Kelly, my cute little cameraman turned into the Tasmanian Devil last night, full on tantrum LOL so maybe I'll send him your way to by YOUR cameraman now :)!
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