The Blight-Resistant Verdict...

For having as many problems with blight and heat as I have this year, I really can't complain about the tomato harvest, can I?  I can't explain it other than I did start with about 30 plants, double what I normally grow.  I have been getting a big harvest every 3 days but now that temps are consistently in the high 90's, the fruit is not setting well, so I think this will be the last harvest this size for awhile.  I'll start doing salsas instead of canning sauce once they start to trickle down.  So far this year though, I have harvested 100 lbs of tomatoes, of which 70 lbs have been Brandywines - and from only 6 plants!  Considering that blight took out the Amish Paste completely within 2 weeks, and we had to rip out the Hillbillies last night, I'm going out on a limb and saying that my Brandywines, although suffering blight, are the most resistant ones out there, and are still going well in spite of it.  Specifically, the Brandywine seed from Baker Creek, so I will be doing that seed again next year.

Now that we have the "nice" photo out of the way, this is what was going on last night in the heat and humidity - we couldn't put it off any longer.

These are the Hillbilly tomatoes, badly suffering blight.  3 of the 4 plants were tossed, and the last is only there long enough for the large green ones to ripen a bit in the sun, then it goes out too.

This Hillbilly still had lots of green leaves, so "Blight Boy" trimmed out the bad stuff, and we'll see how long it will continue.

Below is the Brandywine bed - although affected considerably with Early Blight, it continues to pump out 1.5-2 lb fruit weather and heat permitting.  I haven't sprayed them with fungicide for almost a month, so these were sprayed vigorously after trimming last night.

Oh, yes, Blight Boy!  (or my Blight Bitch, as I affectionately call him) - some people have a pool boy, I have this...

he's just as hot as any pool boy I think, and he's cheaper!

This morning brings the first day of the return of "humidity-geddon".  I know lots of you were dealing with this all weekend, luckily we had a little reprieve from those temps for about 4 days.  It was just long enough for me to really start to improve my mood - but here it comes again, daily 100º temps.  Can you believe at 6 p.m. last night it was 1 degree HOTTER at Mama Pea's house than it was here?  How's that for a strange weather pattern?  I think her average annual temp is about 38 º (no, I'm not kidding), but yet she was hotter the past couple of days than us.  The 4 day party is sadly over for me, however, 100 degrees right through the week's forecast.

I took this last morning before it hits to get outside and finish up some more chores, trimming a few miles of unruly grapevines, tying up tomatoes & peppers, pulling a few weeds (I'm giving up on that battle), and pulling some SVB attacked/dead winter squash vines.  8 am to 9:30 was all I could manage before the sweat and bugs started to get to me!

Finally, just a wee bit more harvest ... 

Quadrato diAsti bell peppers, Jimmy Nardello frying pepper, jalapeno, cukes, bush beans, the first Chinese Red Noodle beans, and some little onions.  Those are actually "Scallions Gone Wild" as I refer to them - I can't grow onions well here at all, but I find if I leave my scallions out all year and pull them late I have enough little onions to be able to call my salsa truly my own, LOL

I think I have enough to keep me busy inside during the heat.  I'm planning on canning either tomato sauce or salsa, have even started some knitting, and am dreaming of sewing something for my little niece.  Not sure if I'll get the time, but it's nice to have dreams, isn't it?  :)

The Daily Grind

It feels like Groundhog Day here...  every day starts the same, with hacking away at my tomato plants in the hot and humid morning.  Being the lazy blogger I feel like today, I just videotaped it instead of writing about it!

Heat index was already in the 90's doing chores this morning, steamy and mosquitoes are out in full force.  We have been having nightly thunderstorms the past several days, which is making the blight spread faster, and the storms wreak havoc with the plants and I'm having to re-tie them to supports on a constant basis, or they are completely laying on their sides, supports and all.

A few things are loving the heat, even if I'm not!

Sugar Baby Bush Watermelon in container

The Sugar Pie pumpkin/corn fence line bed

Pumpkin Blossom

My first squash, Butternut.

I finally got a photo of Mr. Mockers for you.  My constant companion for years out here, this time I was allowed a photograph!  Normally he hops around on top of the split rail fence following me menacingly, squawking and divebombing me, but today he decided to sit still and act nice for a moment.  I absolutely love this bird, his personality fits well with mine :), I know it's the same one every year since he has a mocking call that imitates me yelling out the back door "MAR-leeeeeee, SPROCK-etttttttt".  The nest is made in the very top of the Hops arbor every year, it's a fantastic perch from which to watch over the whole "territory" and watch for people and dogs coming from the house.

Mr. Mockers on his sentry post in the pepper bed!

I actually find his antics and middle of the night ruckus and singing pretty amusing!  One of his more endearing qualities is dive bombing Sprocket's head.  She looks at me like "aren't you going to stop this?" and I just laugh since she seems pretty deserving of a good peck on the head pretty frequently :)

OK, I'm BACK!

Debit card, check!  Big Girl panties, check!  Ch-Chnk - hear the shotgun being cocked? 

 Game ON!

By 7:30 am I was on my way to my favorite little nursery, favorite because they give a discount to Master Gardeners and carry lots of organic weapons and seedlings.  Sadly, it was not to be, the seedlings all looked like they had blight, LOL I told you I'm seeing it everywhere now!

Peel outta there, going to check the big bad box store... nothing interesting there in the way of tomatoes, but I did get these...

2 flats of petunias and marigolds for $1.75 per flat!  Why?  I guess because they didn't have any flowers on them and needed to be deadheaded, haha, they're mine now!

Next stop, the local Disneyland of nurseries...

Repeat after me:  stay focused!

Focus....

oh look, Sweet Potatoes - FOCUS!

Don't look into the light!

What the heck is THIS?  For real?  $299.00?????  More power to them, I guess.

Finally, I've arrived.

No more screwing around with $12 ready to spray bottles that won't even treat one bed, I spent $25 for the concentrate and $7 for the spray bottle.  I'll be dousing the Brandywines liberally to try and save them, since they showed no signs of blight until late last night.

I also cleaned them out of the last Juliet tomatoes.  I hear they are one of the most Early Blight resistant 'maters out there, if there is such a thing.  Unfortunately it thunderstormed last night and this morning and is expected to be in the 90's, the worst thing for spreading blight, but I'll be out there this evening after dinner with bells on!  I'm not going down without a fight.... "$64 Dollar Tomato", anyone?  LOL I might need to re-read that book, I believe I may have upped that by a few dollars :)

The writing is on the wall...

How easily it all can turn.  I had some stunning seedlings this year, some of the best ever, actually.  I really felt this was going to be the best year ever for tomatoes.  I had more growth than I'd ever seen, strong stems, was religious about trimming them and supporting them, and I'd never seen so much fruit set before.  

Today I actually cried.  At first I just picked up my shears (always disinfected nowadays) and started trimming off the blight exactly where I stopped yesterday, and the day before.  The spray is having no effect, and it's spreading.  As I watched the leaves pile up in the trash I just sat down on the raised bed and cried.  I've never cried over the garden before, I feel like a crazy lady!  

Of course the truth is I could go to the Farmer's Market to buy tomatoes, but my job is to grow food for my family.  I pride myself on my ability to grow, preserve and serve as much of my hard work as possible and even though I know it happens to everyone sooner or later, I feel like a failure!  There's no way I could ever afford to buy farmer's market tomatoes for canning (can you imagine purchasing a few hundred pounds?!) and I really wouldn't even want to, even those sit around for awhile and aren't as fresh as mine, and damnit, it's just not the same!  So what do I do, give up for the year?

Here's the update:

The entire Amish Paste bed looks as if it will be ripped out this weekend.  Definitely 2 of the 3 Red Zebra will have to go.  I found 2 branches on the bottom of a Hillbilly plant, and even found signs on the Brandywines tonight that weren't there at 2 pm today.

Above, 4 total Amish Paste have now been removed.  Below, just hoping some of these will ripen before I yank the rest of the bed.  There are loads of fruit on these, but every hour it seems there are more branches yellow and dead.

The Brandywines look amazing in the below photo taken today about 1 pm, but this evening I pulled 2 lower branches on the back side and sprayed the remaining drops of copper fungicide I had.  I will probably go out and buy some more to try and save these, the Amish Paste were too far gone by the time I sprayed them.  I can't really afford to do this, though, at what point do I call "time"?!

I've been kind of a zombie all afternoon and evening, my poor kids know something is up - I'm short tempered and on the verge of tears every time I look out the back door.  How crazy is that?  To be crying over some tomato plants?  I even tried to look at the bright side, it obviously means that this type of life and eating is the norm here, the food I grow is the only source of vegetables, I haven't been to the produce section of a grocery store for veggies in over 2 years except onions and potatoes.  I think this is why I'm affected so badly, I pride myself on having good things stashed away for winter and it looks like I may have nothing to show for my efforts this year.  I've also noticed 2 leaves on my pepper plants that look the same tonight.  But at what point am I just seeing blight everywhere I look, no matter if it's real or not LOL?

Should I attempt to grow more seedlings from a resistant variety?  Should I buy resistant "big box" varieties of unknown origin (yikes)?  Do I give up on tomatoes this year?  I will definitely have to grow resistant hybrids for the next couple of years probably until it's out of the soil, unless we get some consistent 20 degree weather this winter, that's unlikely.  At least I have time before next year to find resistant varieties that come from a responsible source.  

Since I felt particularly unlucky today, hubby and Finn planted my gourd and zucchini seedlings for me :)

Finn hugged me and told me he was sad for my tomatoes too, and that he named his plant, it's an Ornamental Gourd he called "Mental Gourds" and the zucchini is "Pythorius Redonculus"... which means absolutely nothing but is so cute I had to laugh.

As a sidenote:  Sometimes I feel like the family doesn't notice or appreciate all the hard work that goes into what arrives on their plates and fills the cupboards and freezer.  I often feel like tapping the mike..."hey, is this thing on??"  Then Loch came home with a letter he had written that his teacher had sent home today, this darn near made me a sobbing mess, but it's why I do what I do, and wow... the kid notices!

  

Thanks in advance for your kind words, I know they are headed my way and that's the reason I had to vent this evening!  I never feel in competition with any of my blogger family and feel utterly comfortable in sharing my failures, I know we all have them sooner than later, but it sure does seem many of us are having more than our share in 2011.  Honestly, when I was trimming blight I thought of how fun it would be for everyone to bring their blight, bugs, downed trees and drowned seedlings to a group bonfire, we could all pass a bottle while throwing our stuff to the fire and having a little chit chat with Mother Nature!

p.s.  don't worry, I'm sure the big girl panties will show up soon and I will put them on and brush myself off and come up with a plan!  :)

Here's another kicker:  I'm hosting a garden party Saturday night for a local group of gardeners, looks like they'll be able to get a better visual of disease symptoms than they can get from textbook photos!

Of Bugs & Blight

I think I have recovered enough that I can talk about my issues with Early Blight.  Yesterday was treatment day, I trimmed and sprayed, trimmed and sprayed, until...

there was barely anything left!

Above, the Roma tomato bed was the worst.  I pulled 2 plants from the right side completely and had to prune radically.

Below, the Red Zebra tomatoes.  I purposefully pruned these up like a tree early on, but only the one on the right had blight symptoms, and now looks pretty pathetic!  I know the plant doesn't have enough foliage to survive now, but am hoping for the fruit to ripen before I pull it completely.

The Yellow Pear tomatoes were a total loss and were pulled.  I was able to save a few ripe ones, but sadly it was toast.  

The frustrating thing is that I anticipate this stuff from the get-go, I always prune up so there is light and air circulation underneath, only water from the bottom, etc.  We did have an unusually cool, wet month of May when they were set out.  I also noted that I had the same problem only with these varieties last year, and used the same seed packs... I'll be throwing them out pronto.

Now, some good news!  My other tomatoes seem unaffected by anything other than heavy loads.

Heirloom Brandywines & Hillbillies

Hybrid Orange Wellington is a good producer in containers, these were in containers last year too, and withstood being knocked over countless times in storms.

Today, we were kicked in the gut again... Squash Vine Borers!  

Above is one of the Sugar Pie pumpkins.  I had never seen a SVB moth in real life before but when it landed I did a double take, immediately recognized it from Loch's bug briefings and started hollering at hubby to come over and help.  I happened to have a bottle of Neem Oil insecticidal soap spray in my tool caddy and nailed it repeatedly - it then basically gave me the finger and flew off.  I ran inside and looked up exactly what the eggs looked like so I could get them before they hatched and burrowed in, and ran back outside.  After briefing hubby we went to start searching all the bases of all the squash plants.  While peering in there it landed again right in front of us.  Chaos ensued, me spraying Neem at it like G.I. Jane unloading a machine gun, hubby chasing it with a fly swatter, and the dogs in the house barking trying to figure out why we seem to have had gone off the deep end.  Anyway, we didn't get it and now I'm freaked out and keep going out there to look for eggs, I'm thinking about sitting on the deck with binoculars and lying in wait!  I know it's going to be bad because it's not even a race to get the squash before the SVB damage kicks in - they haven't even bloomed yet!  I'll have to be more careful with my machine gun spray once they bloom, I surely don't want to hit any bees!

I'll finish with some good things...

It was 79ºtoday, only 42% humidity, and it just doesn't get any cooler than that around here, thank you, Mother Nature!

Got the deck cleaned up and rearranged...

and shocked my fish by cleaning the pond!

Thanks to all of you for your helpfulness on the zucchini planting, I'll be doing that tomorrow.  We are expected to remain below 82 degrees until Friday, when the heat gets kicked back up again.

I'm not giving up...

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!