first week of august

an exquisite white faced hornets nest

a birds nest on our truck's undercarriage


a truck full of garlic

This week has been intense. There is not really much of another way to describe it. Its been a double whammy with the arrival of both of the dreaded, unstoppable diseases that we wrote about last week. First of all, we were the first in the state! Unfortunately, it is at having downy mildew. We reported our suspected case to the extension agent and as she was already scheduled to be here for some other thing, so she looked at it and concurred that it did indeed look like downy mildew, the first reported case in the state if the look at the spores through the microscope validates it.

the phone has been ringing with new cases of late blight on tomatoes and potatoes. In the last week alone, we have heard of 8 farms that have it, not just locally but all over the place. When I sat down to write this hours ago, i was ready to say that our scouting has not turned up any yet, but as i sat down to write this, matthew came in and asked me to look at something in the field with him- and there it was, late blight. We have spotted it early and have some possible hope for control- depending on the weather.

we had already decided earlier in the week to begin a biological herbicide spraying regime and the copper and a new larger sprayer is en route at this writing. Matthew will spend some time tomorrow pulling the infected potato plants which he will then destroy (either by burning or smothering with plastic for later disposal) and we will begin spraying with copper hydroxide. This is a preventative measure to keep the infection from spreading. Again it may or may not succeed depending on the weather and other factors, we may lose all our tomatoes and all of our potatoes in a worst case scenario. We hope to avoid that worst case.

If you have tomato or potato plants, check them often, at least twice a week for brownish spots with a water soaked appearance around the outside. If you do get late blight as a kindness to your neighbors and to farmers, pull diseased plants and dispose of them in a sealed bag in the trash or by burying, smothering under plastic, or burning. The spores thrive in cool, wet weather and are air born.

In addition to these two awful diseases, we pulled our german white garlic and found that our harvest is about half of last years since some rotted in low spots over the winter. and we have downy mildew on our onions which will kill the leaves and will make the lose a little of their potential size. Like i said, its been a rough week.

here's hoping next week is a better one.
liz and matthew

things you may see this week:
squash
cukes
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
beans
celery
lettuce (mix)
beet greens
potatoes
basil
dill
cilantro
parsley
eggplants
peppers
husk cherries
tomatillos
cabbage
broccoli