July 12, 2013

late blight – arrgh!

I got a notice today that late blight appears to be in our area. Its within 200 miles away – in Franklin County, western MA. **#@&!!! *^&&%%*!! Map: http://www.usablight.org/?q=map At our community garden, we had such a bad experience with late blight last year that we contracted to have late blight resistant tomato seedlings grown for us by a local grower this spring. (I wish I could find the newspaper article link – another **%^$@!) Our garden is supplying a few organic pest controls to all gardeners. Now that late…

July 10, 2013

toad returns

I finally gave my garden a deep watering today. I didn’t bother the past few days as I didn’t have time to water deeply. And our community garden has limited water and it not really worth watering if anyone else is watering. (Next year we are getting a new system! Yippee!) As I was watering, I discovered my old garden toad from the last two years. He is still here !!! He had dug into the soil under the squashes. As I watered, he moved on to another, likely drier,…

July 8, 2013

garden after vacation

I returned to a bone dry community garden that I hardly recognized as it had grown so much! And so many weeds. I had weeded before I left and did not expect to see so many pigweed, lambsquarters, crabgrass, chickweed, plantain, etc, etc. My escarole frisee was so pretty when I left and I thought a week would make it perfect. Here’s the pretty photo: When I got back – one week later – it had bolted to 4 feet high! If I had the space to spare, I would…

July 7, 2013

vacation from the garden

Boy, am I looking forward to get back in my garden! I’ve spent the past week in the mountains of Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. With my two sisters and our families we had an amazing adventure. At Yellowstone, we saw herds of 2000+ bison with newborn calves, we wandered through alpine flower fields in a July hailstorm (altitude 11,000 feet), we watched coyotes hunting, grizzly bears mating and black bear cubs loping after their mothers. We stayed at a remote cabin in a Montana valley – a great location…

July 4, 2013

Skippy is getting a buddy

We will be getting a new puppy soon! Suzie. She will be from the same breeder as Skippy. She is a cousin about 3 generations removed and is 3 weeks old now. We will bring her home at 8 weeks – sometime mid August. I have been telling Skippy that it will be his job to help train her.

June 30, 2013

daddy long legs – a garden beneficial

I love to see these amazing creatures. This Daddy Long Legs is on my potatoes. Maybe that’s why the Potato beetles aren’t proliferating as fast as they sometimes do. I had to look up some info on these spiders-that-aren’t-spiders. They’re not spiders, they’re Opiliones. And they’re more accurately called harvestmen. Harvestmen legs can exceed 6 inches! They molt every ten days and their legs have seven joints. The embryos also apparently have one or two “egg teeth” to help them get out of the egg sac. They really are good…

June 22, 2013

summer solstice weeding

I am amazed at how fast the weeds are growing this year. But then, bet I say that every year…. I start weeding at one end of the garden and by the time I finish, there are big weeds at the far side again and I have to start over. As I remember, this weed phase is a late June/early July thing – the summer solstice weed race. Soon the vegetable plants will be big enough to shade the weeds. In late July/August, the weeds will wind down their growth…

June 4, 2013

lots of baby pears

My espaliered pear trees are filled with hundreds of little pears!!! The first year. I guess pruning them right was the trick. I am wondering if I should remove some of the pears. I’ll look into that. Soon I will bag them with either plastic baggies or paper bags to protect against bugs and chipmunks.

June 1, 2013

trellising tomatoes

This year I am trellising my tomatoes. I planted the seedlings very deep, then added 1-2 inch collars (for cutworm protection). The trellis stem is made up of two upright posts set into the ground 6 feet apart. Each post has a hole at the top. Through the two holes, I thread an 8 foot metal pole. Twine provides the support for the tomato plants. To set up the twine, I cut a length twice the height of the pole from the ground and laid this over the metal pole…

June 1, 2013

rhubarb crisp

I picked a big handful of rhubarb today – first of the season. It made a delicious rhubarb crisp for desert. My rhubarb is green, but tastes every bit as good as red rhubarb. Recipe Topping: 1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts 1/4 cup old fashioned oats (not instant) 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 3/4 cup flour 1/3 cup light brown sugar 1 tablespoon sugar 4 tablespoons unsalted butter Filling: 1 1/2 pounds rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour Preheat oven to 400 degrees.…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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