Been a busy day.
And my tomato plants all have blight and most likely will be dead in a week or so at the rate they are dying. All that work.
This post is in: Open Threads
Been a busy day.
And my tomato plants all have blight and most likely will be dead in a week or so at the rate they are dying. All that work.
Comments are closed.
Ajay
Same here. I started few of these later in season (3-4 weeks) on purpose and they are doing fine. I think its related to age of the plant.
General Winfield Stuck
Tell me about it. The hungry Mule Deer broke thru my concertina wire (actually chicken wire) barriers and ate mine down to the quik. Some years you eat the mater, other years the Deer do.
Annie
Sorry about the tomato plants. My husband keeps bringing seeds his mom gave him from Bosnia (he’s Bosnian), and now we are overrun with tomato plants and peppers. We have so many “Bosnian” peppers that if it wasn’t forbidden by our home association, I would have a pepper stand in front of my townhouse.
I mean really, how many peppers can one family eat????? We have them in salads, in sauce, and we have even taken to given to friends for gifts….We used to give people a bottle of wine, now, we just give peppers.
Keep the Tunch and Lily pictures coming. She is so beautiful. And Tunch is just Tunch. Gotten love the guy
smiley
Olympia Snowe has stated that the public option was never on the table in the finance committee. Good to know.
mr. whipple
Our cukes have been screwed with some type of mold all year. I gotta spray them every week.
Then there’s the deer.
Then, for the first time ever, japanese beetles decided they liked our basil. (maybe they’re italian beetles?)
Aqualad08
Under Obamacare, your tomato plants would already be dead at the hands of a death panel…
Colette
Some summers here (San Francisco) are good for tomatoes and some for lettuce, but I can almost never grow a whole salad at the same time. This year I guessed wrong and planted tomatoes when it’s been a lettuce summer all the way. The plants are still only a foot high and they’ve got about six ripe cherry tomatoes total. Famine. Phooey.
mr. whipple
“I mean really, how many peppers can one family eat????? We have them in salads, in sauce, and we have even taken to given to friends for gifts….We used to give people a bottle of wine, now, we just give peppers.”
Ours are doing great, since it finally got warm. We did 70 plants of various varieties, and are eating them every night.
qwerty42
I saw in the NYT (maybe Sunday a week ago) that late blight is hitting tomatoes all up the east coast. The rain and generally cool weather this summer is thought to be the cause. I believe there are some resistant varieties, but check your Burpee/Park/Totally Tomato catalog. And, of course, the heirloom varieties have no resistance. Really too bad (I am enjoying BLTs with fresh basil while I can). But there is always next year.
smiley
My tomato plants don’t even exist! Beat that for tomato-plant angst!
arguingwithsignposts
Can I just ask who the f**k died and appointed the Senate Finance Committee (specifically the LOSERS in the GOP) gods of health care reform? WTF? The Senate has a committee that deals with health care. It actually has HEALTH in the name (HELP). And yet everyone is bowing before this OTHER committee full of redneck retards like Grassley, Baucus, Conrad and the like.
Geez, grow some spine, Senators. I’m glad the House progressives are standing up to these pricks (Snowe included).
Irony Abounds
My guess is that somewhere nearby a town hall was held where a gaggle of crazies stoked the fear that your tomatoes would cause the premature death of senior citizens. So, your tomatoes were consigned to the scrap heap of history.
Joel
John,
Blight is bad this year. Are these plants in soil? Cut the blighted leaves, including the yellowing ones, and you might be able to save them.
I’ve had to fight off three bouts of blight this season in my tomatoes. Some have pulled through with the assistance of heavy doses of copper soap (from Bonide; ~$15 for all you’ll need for a few seasons).
I wonder how prices on commercial nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, e.g.) are going to reflect this (if they do). Also interested to see how the pesticide (fungicide) load on conventional agriculture goes up with this as well.
Brachiator
Yikes. Sorry to hear about the plants. Here’s a little comedy relief. Actress April Winchell writes on her blog site about the latest pet food trend: breakfast dog food.
She notes:
Wait. There’s more. The complete entry can be found here:
http://www.aprilwinchell.com/
Annie
@Mr.Whipple
I am not going to tell my husband you have “70 varieties.” He will be on the phone with his mom to ask for more!
Peppers anyone?
beltane
@mr. whipple: The Japanese beetles are eating everything this year. They’ve eaten kale, arugula, and green beans, and they almost killed my plum trees. I hate them.
Irrelevant,YetPoignant
@smiley: I’m not even sure that tomatoes grow on plants at all if I’m not there to observe them! How’s that for solipsistic/existentialist tomato angst?
Joel
@Joel: I’m in Seattle, FWIW, and in a community garden, where the late blight is endemic. This is thanks to honest-to-god-DFHs that think that “volunteer plants” are cute and aren’t vectors for diseases that overwinter in a living host, like the blight!
GReynoldsCT00
@Annie:
Do you have a place to plant or do you have them in pots on a patio/deck? I’m a condo dweller too and thought I might try the pot thing next year.
Damn deer have almost decimated my garden plot… nobody else’s just mine…guess my hostas are special or something
Max
Sweet Jesus –
Guest line up for Bill Maher tonight..
Jay Leno, TV Host
Chuck Todd, journalist
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Sam Harris, author
Jeremy Scahill, journalist
Hmmm.. which of these things is not like the other.
beltane
Our corn is pathetic this year. We’ve had no more than ten days of 80 degree weather this summer and the corn is all stunted. The broccoli was mediocre, but the cauliflower is outstanding. Lot of blueberries, too.
I’m still waiting on the tomatoes. We have lots of them, but they’re not turning red.
Vitelius
Here’s why your tomatoes are dying:
According to plant pathologists, this killer round of blight began with a widespread infiltration of the disease in tomato starter plants. Large retailers like Home Depot, Kmart, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart bought starter plants from industrial breeding operations in the South and distributed them throughout the Northeast. (Fungal spores, which can travel up to 40 miles, may also have been dispersed in transit.) Once those infected starter plants arrived at the stores, they were purchased and planted, transferring their pathogens like tiny Trojan horses into backyard and community gardens. Perhaps this is why the Northeast was hit so viciously: instead of being spread through large farms, the blight sneaked through lots of little gardens, enabling it to escape the attention of the people who track plant diseases.
Which one is more awesome, the South or big-box garden stores?
The Saff
Don’t know if anyone saw this in the NY Times today. Pensioners in FL are worried health care reform means their benefits are going to be cut.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/health/policy/21housecall.html?_r=1&hp
Robertdsc-iphone
The Senate Finance committee has jurisdiction over Medicare & Medicaid. That’s why they’re involved.
General Winfield Stuck
@arguingwithsignposts:
Nobody, It’s just a ruse by BAucus and his buds Enzi and Grassass to be the last committee to act thereby becoming the spotlight and a blocking back for the teabaggers and others to dump steaming piles on the national dialogue for HC reform. Poor, or non-existent leadership by Reid to allow it, and likely a little quiet cheerleading from him that it works to defeat reform.
Bingaman is my Senator, and is, and has been a staunch supporter of the PO, but has less seniority than Max.
But now they have used up their 15 minutes and have nothing left but keep slow walking the bill. In two weeks congress returns and the real debate will begin.
John Cole
@arguingwithsignposts: The better question is where the hell are Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders and someone other than Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich on my damned tv?
SGEW
@Max: Sam Harris? Awesome sauce! That guy’s the best.
It’s times like these when I wish I had a tv. Kind of.
arguingwithsignposts
@Robertdsc-iphone:
Fair enough, but I didn’t ask why they were involved. I asked why they were the ones who get to f**k with the rest of the entire Congress, especially since Medicare and Medicaid are only tangentially involved in this bill, since we’re not talking “medicare for all.”
asiangrrlMN
@arguingwithsignposts:
Amen to that, brother. Every time I hear the Finance Committee in relation to healthcare reform, I want to puncture my eardrums with a rusty toothpick. Come to think of it, I want to do that pretty much any time I hear any pundits or GOP congress folks or Blue Dawgs talk about anything.
I need a fucking nap.
SGEW
@John Cole: Oh, right. This is why I’m overall rather glad I don’t have one. Thanks for the reminder!
Fleem
Late blight is always around in the air — it’s just early this year because of the shitty weather. Before the early blight, even. Early blight causes the leaves to yellow and die up from the bottom of the plant. Late blight causes dead spots all over the leaves and stems and kills all over, though usually more thoroughly dead from the bottom up.
Don’t blame the volunteer plants or the DFH’s — even the plants I grew from seed in containers are coming down with it. Haven’t seen a single hornworm though.
Surprisingly, I think the weather caused the Japanese beetles to be somewhat less awful, or at least delayed, this year. I actually got a crop of raspberries.
Max
@SGEW: I don’t know him, but glad to hear he’s good people. Something is going to have to balance out Chuckie T. I also swabble with their calling him a “journalist”. That’s not exactly how I see him.
beltane
@Vitelius: That’s fascinating. I grow all my tomatoes from seed in a greenhouse and they are blight free. My cheapness has paid off.
ellaesther
Oy, my Democratic Party has the blight. All that work…!
(Sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind! I am also sorry for your tomato loss, however).
arguingwithsignposts
@John Cole:
Well, apparently, they’ve confined Bernie Sanders to the liberal evening block on MSNBC. I don’t know where they’re hiding Feingold. And yet, they keep booking Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, who were REPRESENTATIVES who aren’t even in Congress at the moment, as if their opinions were worth more than those of currently elected representatives.
{face/palm}
I agree with @asiangrrlMN: I need a nap.
Tonal Crow
I’ve got Tomato Fail this year too. So far: a single ripe cherry tomato from a total of 4 plants. They’re all at least a month behind last year’s growth. The basil’s fine, though, so I’ve made pesto. Here’s the recipe (I cook by feel, not measurement, so it’s approximate):
* 1 cup organic pine nuts
* 1 cup organic walnuts
* ~ 8oz Reggiano Parmesan (the real stuff; it’s hard and flaky, costs $15+/lb, and is very flavorful)
* 1/2 lemon, juiced
* 1/2 cup quality olive oil
* Most of a paper grocery bag of fresh basil cuttings
Remove and wash basil leaves. Add pine nuts & walnuts to food processor w/chopping blade and chop until fragments are BB-sized. Cut Parmesan into 1/2″ cubes and add to food processor. Add lemon and olive oil. Chop until it just begins to turn into a paste. Add a handful of basil, chop until well mixed, repeat until you’ve added all leaves, then continue until the mixture is a thick paste.
Serve with handmade or fresh pasta and a good glass of Montepulchiano d’Abruzzo or cabernet sauvignon.
Cover and store any leftovers (ha!) promptly in the fridge.
JGabriel
@Joel:
Umm, it might also have something to do with proximity to the northwest rainforest region? Just asking. (Not totally rhetorical, either. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
.
Brachiator
As an Open Thread aside, it’s clear that in Wingnuttistan, everything the Obamas do is wrong.
The latest? First Ladies who wear shorts to the Grand Canyon make the Ghost of Jackie O cry:
Sarah Palin lookin’ all sexy in running shorts and gear, why that’s positively presidential. Also, too. But Michelle Obama wearing sensible shorts to the freakin’ Grand Canyon is just another confirmation that she is unfit to be First Lady. Maybe she should have borrowed some granny drawers from Barbara Bush.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1207941/Michelle-Obama-wears-shorts-hiking-trip–causes-stir.html
Litlebritdifrnt
I lost mine too John, the only ones that have survived are the ones in pots on the patio (I have three ripe romas out there right now and a developing green pepper) and the giant tree tomato in one of the beds in the veggie garden, which has got to be six feet tall yet refuses to flower (I think to be honest it is not getting enough sun). The rest of my veggie garden basically fell victim to some sort of tiny beetle (not only me, I was talking to one of the bailiffs in court who has a huge garden and all his stuff got eaten too, I am organic he is not and he tells me that no matter what he sprayed or dusted with it didn’t help). I am hoping that the brassicas may recover once the weather cools down and I plan on putting in a fall/winter garden anyway at the beginning of September (lettuce, green peas, more cabbage, collards, onions, carrots etc.). I might even try the potato tower again over the winter (the beetles even ate those). Such is life with a garden, sometimes all the hard work pays off (as it does with me early in the season, I save an absolute fortune on the “designer” lettuce plants alone) sometimes you put in all the work and you end up with, as one blogger put it, the $200.00 tomato. Still, it is a good work out in the good fresh air, and for the price of the plants (or the seeds), just getting a little harvest is worth it, cause nothing in the world tastes better than something you have actually grown yourself.
Tonal Crow
@Tonal Crow: Hmm, so that’s what adding an asterisk at the beginning of a line does. I can has sitefix?
Comrade Mary
My sympathies, John. I lost most of my romaine and bok choi to some truly gross slugs in June. I cut and blasted with water and dug up the remaining bits of plant, and salvaged some partially nibbled basil for pesto.
Luckily, the slugs didn’t care much for toxic tomato leaves, so even though my tomatoes were slow starters (in Toronto, in a tiny back yard that doesn’t get enough sun, with all the rain we’ve had), I started getting golden cherry tomatoes a month ago. That plant is growing like mad and producing a cup of ripe fruit every day or so. My beefsteaks have started going ripe and they’re the best ever, and even the relatively blah Early Boys/Early Girls are acceptable.
Very few of us get all we want out of our gardens. I was hosed early in the year, and my luck has turned only recently. Just look forward to next year.
Tonal Crow
@ellaesther:
That particular cultivar always tends to fail. It’s almost like it has a death wish.
qwerty42
@Vitelius: That is the NYT article I saw. I’m in the southeast, the “late blight” in the northeast is the “early blight” here (usually it will be too hot/dry to be a problem, but plants are being hit here too). However the southeast is just getting out of a drought that has been fairly severe. OTOH, peppers are doing great.
qwerty42
@Tonal Crow: like an heirloom, when it comes in (through), it’s great.
Joel
@JGabriel: Seattle has pretty dry summers, this year more dry than last. Not exactly the perfect recipe for the blight, although it gets started early and it’s usually wet until July, long after the plants go in.
What’s telling about the blight is that some people built full-on hoophouses and, controlling the weeds in them, they have no blight. None whatsoever.
I try to eradicate volunteer potatoes and mustards because yes, they do carry diseases.
The real mindfuck in the gardens here is clubroot. Doesn’t need a host, lives for a long time (decades) in the soil, spreads easily, and completely and totally annihilates brassicas.
JGabriel
NYT via Vitelius:
And now I have a new corollary to the “I blame Ayn Rand” rule: If it’s not Ayn Rand’s fault, it’s the South’s.
.
Origuy
This is the first year we’ve had tomatoes that look like they might produce fruit. I’m not sure of one of the varieties that my housemate planted; they are about a foot high and look healthy. The Momotaros that she planted later are just coming up. She got the seeds from a Japanese friend.
No blight, but we got an infestation of oxalis. I laid down a layer of mulch, but it’s still coming up a little. Finally killed off the whiteflies that were all over the fuchsia with battalions of ladybugs.
We only have about 20 sq ft of dirt around the patio. Thanks to the six foot high fence and buildings on the other sides, it doesn’t get much sun. The herb garden gets the best spot.
JGabriel
@Joel:
Ah, thanks. For some reason I thought Seattle had a higher than average humidity. My mistake.
.
SGEW
@Max: Sam Harris wrote The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (google book link here). The first (and best) of the so-called “New Atheist” books. Controversial, to say the least (and not just because of the anti-theism), and not for everyone.
Annie
@GReynoldsCT00
We have both the tomato plants and peppers in planters on the patio. This seems to work tooooo well.
Want some peppers?
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I’m sure that Michelle Obama’s problem was that she didn’t accessorize her shorts with pantyhose the way Sarah Fail’n did. It’s those little things that make the difference between starbursts and the evil bitch from hell. That and skin color.
harlana pepper
damn tamaters. the heartache. see why I don’t garden?
sapheriel
i planted a little herb garden and a swarm of caterpillars ate EVERYTHING. i’m so pissed.
Litlebritdifrnt
@JGabriel:
The thing that amazed me when I posted on the gardening boards is that me and Seattle share the same gardening zone 7/8, I just cannot fathom how that could be.
gnomedad
@Brachiator:
Just what you’d expect from an angry person. Whitey, also.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Roger Moore:
FLOTUS hates panty hose, she is too tall and can’t get any that fit, I know this cause she said so on “The View” and really shorts and panty hose? Ewwwwwwww. That’s right up there with socks and sandles.
Poopyman
Add me to the be-blighted. The cherry tomatoes hung on the longest, but the heirlooms went right straight to hell.
Oh well, at least I don’t have to be out there in the heat and mosquitos picking tomatoes. Small comfort.
The peppers are booming along though. And I have to get broccoli seedlings started ASAP for the fall crop. With luck, I’ll be able to keep them into December here in Tidewater MD.
harlana pepper
Yes, if it were Sarah Palin everybody would be gushing about her “gorgeous” gams. I shudder to think how this would affect Rich Lowry.
Jack
Here in central Connecticut, this is my worst year of gardening in 30 years, though we did have decent asparagus and rhubarb in the spring. But too little sun and too much rain in June and July meant my tomatoes and hot peppers just sat there, week after week, without putting out much in the way of foliage or flowers. And I’m talking about the surviving pepper plants — the ones that weren’t devoured by the hordes of gigantic slugs. I lost about 1/3 of my peppers (48 plants, 8 varieties, all grown from seed) to slugs. I had some in reserve, and the slugs ate them, too, once I placed them in the garden. And this was after drowning many, many slugs in shallow containers of beer. The slugs ate all my parsley, too. And the dahlias. The combination of no sun and abundant rain made for a mediocre blueberry harvest and a nonexistent raspberry harvest. Even dependable annuals — marigolds and zinnias — have been struggling. So I’ve given up. I’ll probably end up with a few tomatoes and a few hot peppers, but nothing to justify the time and expense. But I’ll try again next year.
Svensker
John, you can try saving them by giving them foliar sprays with composted seaweed. If anything will get them through, that might.
My okra, which last year I could have survived on starting in late June, is just now putting out its first flower. We’ll get frost before there’s enough to crop. Crappola year.
Legalize
My tomato plants have started going south in the past couple weeks as well. Still getting fruit though. Cucumber plants have gone downhill too. The jalepeno plant on the other hand – look out. This is my first year really trying a garden, and I’ve been relying on the expertise of others. My understanding is that it’s been too wet this year. Who knows? In any event, it’s been fun and relaxing trying to make it work.
Riggsveda
Here’s a wish for better days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nitgmAInI18
Violet
What’s wrong with volunteer tomato plants? I’ve used volunteers that have grown out of my homemade compost, and they’ve done really well and produced wonderful tomatoes. Gave some to my neighbor this year. I didn’t know what varieties they were when I dug them out of the compost – turned out to be five different varieties and they all produced really well. I’ve done this for many years and haven’t had any noticeable blight or disease issues. Nothing out of the ordinary anyway.
Joel
@Violet: Volunteer tomatoes are fine, because they reproduce by seeds. Potatoes reproduce by tubers, which provides living tissue for blight fungus to overwinter on. The fungus isn’t especially frost tolerant (as opposed to other diseases like clubroot), so any home is a good one for it.
geg6
The last two days have been sheer hell for me. Freshman move in day followed by upperclassman move in day is always sure to stress any student aid officer out in a normal year (bill must be paid before you get a key or get the mealcard turned on!). But with the economy necessitating a record number of special circumstance reviews and a plethora of people simply making no plan to pay the bill and assuming the university will just overlook things like “paying,” this year has been especially bad. Oh, and I have a record number of orphans/wards of the court which are complicated cases. And then we have the crying woman in my office with a family income of over $100,000 AGI who was pissed her daughter couldn’t be given federal, state, or university grants for financial need because she “needed” it. And who, after I explained that “need” had more than one definition and hers didn’t match the one used in student aid context, then yelled, with her face twisted with hate, “If we were black, you’d give her the $6000.” I’m going with my man to a great Asian place and eat some delicious calimari, drink some Sapporos, and try to forget the entire week.
Balconesfault
Rich Lowry asks Just how stupid do they think we are?
I don’t know, Rich. This stupid?
Violet
@Joel:
Ah, okay. It’s too hot where I live for any volunteer potatoes. They all get killed off in the summer.
Pretty sure you’re supposed to practice crop rotation with potatoes and tomatoes, anyway. Diseases from potatoes can infect tomatoes, so you should plant something else in the potato patch for a year or two – green beans or some other non-nightshade family.
Ash Can
@Brachiator:
I read somewhere years ago that Jackie O didn’t care for how her legs looked, and never showed them off. (Given her refined sense of style, it didn’t matter. She always looked smashing.) In light of that, it would be far more likely, if Michelle were to make Jackie cry, it would be from envy rather than an offended fashion sense.
ruemara
I’m sitting on my 5th harvest of cherry tomatoes and about to slice up a nice beefsteak for tonight’s salad.
all in all, this year’s garden has been pretty good
http://ruemara.blogspot.com/2009/08/farmer-in-dell.html
especially since I got one damn japanese cuke to spawn.
Sorry about your blight John, but if you’d like to nip over to cali and forage, I can send you home with a batch of tomatoes, arugula and random oro blanco eggplant. plus assorted herbs
Joel
@Violet: Absolutely, but crop rotation is impossible in a community garden.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Ash Can:
Absolutely, Michelle is da bomb when it comes to fashion statements, because she really doesn’t give a shit, she wears what she likes, she ain’t a deb, never been a deb, and has no interest in being a deb, she wears basically what your average soccer mom wears, Jackie O was always privileged and always wore the designer style, Michelle is quite happy to shop at Target and other like minded women like that. Having said that she has been given grief for wearing expensive sneakers or carrying an expensive purse, but her husband is a millionaire (because of the book sales) I don’t remember anyone, anywhere giving Jackie O grief because she was wearing Dior. But ya know there is something different about Michelle that I can’t quite put my finger on, oh I don’t know, there is just something, what is it? I mean why did no one have a problem with Jackie O wearing Dior and yet the world goes mad that Michelle wears J-Crew? Hmmmmmm its on the tip of my tongue….. just can’t figure it out.
Demo Woman
I pulled out my tomato plants three weeks ago. It was just to hot to expect more fruit and the squirrels were taking them before I could pick them. The squirrels surprised me, so I googled to find out and it appears that once squirrels try a tomato, they are hooked. Last year I made sauce but this year, I just blanched and froze them for soups and sauces.
My peppers are still doing pretty good.
Walker
My pear tree fell over from all the pears on it this year (the base has been having problems because of a previous tenant hitting it with the lawnmower). So this is the last year I get to harvest pears….
Bodhi
I am so sorry for your blight. Here it is different. Best garden year EVER here in Missouri. Tomatoes, green pepper, corn, bush beans, cukes, and acorn squash. All in a double-dug 3-foot x 10 foot plot (various planting cycles). My rain barrels have paid off, though we’ve had a lot of rain anyway.
I’d like to believe that a Public Plan would pass, but it probably will be something terrible if it has that name (“triggers” to take effect, etc.). I also worry that my congressman (Cleaver), and expecially Sen. McCaskel will waver if the legislation has “no preexisting”, “no caps”, clauses but no public option.
I’d like to trust Obama as I did earlier, but I’m afraid that “President” Rahm is running the show . . .
Just Some Fuckhead
My squash plants have all died, three separate plantings including a complete dirt transplant in the 8’x’4 foot squash box, all to no avail.
My watermelon got a disease, started turning yellow and black and the five little watermelons I had growing slowly turned brown and died. The watermelon vine is still out there trying to grow here and there since curcurbits are generally hardy warriors. Someone told me watermelon are hard to grow successfully.
My blueberry bushes died. Just turned brown and died. Maybe not in that order.
My bell peppers never really took off. Think it’s lousy soil. The plants are still small but they’ve produced maybe a half dozen smallish bell peppers.
My okra are doing great but I only planted two of ’em. I’ll prolly pick six okra pods over the weekend and make a gumbo.
One jalapeno went crazy, it’s close to three feet tall and is producing jalapenos prodigously, I pick a couple a day. The other five jalapeno plants are smallish and are sorta limping along like the bell peppers.
The two cucumber plants went nuts and produced the largest cucumbers I’ve ever grown. More than a few were in excess of a foot long and the largest was eighteen inches long and the diameter of two ordinary cucumbers. I’ve had six to eight cucumbers in the fridge at all times trying to get them eaten before they spoiled. But now the cucumber plants are yellowing out, probably dying.
The tomatoes were the big success this summer. Beefmaster, better boys, cherry and grapes, all growing like mad. I’ve had fried green tomatoes a couple times a week and right now I’ve got sixteen red ones sitting on the windowsill in the kitchen. I’ll prolly freeze ’em before they go bad.
Kirk Spencer
@Jack: If it’s a bad year for slugs, buy some diatomaceous earth and ring the plants with it.
Issues: use the garden DE, not the swimming pool DE as the latter has some chemicals added that you do not want to eat; you will have to replenish after every rain or watering; it, like all other options, is not perfect.
In regard to the last point (not perfect) supplement it with at least one other technique – I recommend manual picking but if you can’t do that use the beer traps. What worked very well for me for manual picking was to lay out some 1×6 boards (about 3-4 feet long) every evening, and in the morning turn them over. My wife and daughter couldn’t stand to pick up the slugs (for smashing or dumping in soapy water) so they took to taking the boards into the street and turning them over. Between birds and cars it pretty well took care of the problem.
Balconesfault
When Michelle gets photographed nude by paparazzi fashion mavens can start comparing fashion gaffes.
joes527
The tomatoes are doing OK here. Once we got them past the hornworm invasion (those suckers are why I never like growing my tomatoes in the first place.) we’ve been getting a slow, steady run of fruit.
The only thing growing in the yard that I really care about anyway is the limes. I have a good crop on the tree this year, and for every one that doesn’t make it to maturity a little bit of me dies.
jnfr
My garden mostly succumbed to a huge hail storm that hit us in July. Broke my heart, cause every thing had just started really producing. Some stuff has come back, but much of it was just out forever.
So sad when gardens do not prosper. All that work, indeed.
Quicksand
Desperate times call for desperate measures: BLP (bacon, lettuce, plum) sandwiches.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/dining/191arex.html
JGabriel
Rich Lowry via Balconesfault:
“Ram-it-through-now credo”? Gosh, I wonder where Rahm could have learned that?
.
shelley matheis
Oh, John, I’m so sorry about your tomato plants.
It’s the one home grown veg that we can’t hurry along. I mean, you can pick baby lettuce and arugula. Pluck your cukes when they’re just pickle size. Zukes are better when they’re picked young. Same with eggplant. Heck, even peppers can be picked little. But unless you’re really into green tomatoes you have no choice but to wait. And after all that work and waiting some lousy shit like late blight comes along…well, there are curse words good enough.
I was patting myself on the back earlier this season when I heard that news about late blight infestation. I grew all my own plants from seed so felt I dodged the bullet. Didn’t count on this incredibly crappy weather and non-stop rain. This is just not gonna be a tomato year.
D-Chance.
Obamamerica does the Friday news dump to the tune of $9,000,000,000,000… we’re so fucked.
Bad Horse's Filly
@joes527: The first time I saw a tomato hornworm, I scream, threw it into the street and hit it with a shovel. Hoping to find out what it was (this was before intertubes) I related the story to an entomologist and he almost cried. I felt bad.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Bad Horse’s Filly: I ‘screamed’ not scream. WHERE IS MY DAMN EDIT BUTTON!
Ash Can
@jnfr: Oy. A few years ago, we had a big, evil cloud drop quarter-sized hailstones on our neighborhood one afternoon in about the third week of May. It was a godawful mess. My hostas were just about at full leaf at that point, and they looked like they’d been run over by a lawn mower. I kept repeating to myself, over and over, “they’re hostas; they’ll grow back” to keep from bursting into tears. (And yes, they certainly did.)
freelancer
@SGEW:
Yeah, Sam Harris is awesome. I wish someone had a streaming deal with HBO.
@D-Chance.:
Link please. What are you talking about?
freelancer
Also,
The dish’s latest post, titled “Wii as liberator”
The Women have been liberated! We’re treating the symptom, not the disease.
He’d have been better off flying home with an Urdu translation of “The End of Faith” and a jump rope.
What the fuck are we fighting for in Afghanistan? That country doesn’t have roads, much less a chance at democracy. Sharia law isn’t going anywhere. I used to think it was the correct war, but even wonks like Ackerman are puzzled as to the endgame.
shelley matheis
vacuumslayer
Last night a winged a pasta dish. I cooked some cherry tomatoes with garlic ’til they deflated. Then I tossed them over a buttload of fresh arugula with a pound of spaghetti and some freshly-grated Parmesan. I let the hot pasta and tomatoes wilt the arugula. And some olive oil and pasta water loosened up the sauce. I’m not sure, but I think I’m a Stalinist now. Oh, btw, it was GOOD. Really good.
asiangrrlMN
The nap, it had me. Now, I am rooting against Brett Favre and trying to keep my blood pressure down as I listen to the homers puking up the Favre Kool-Aid and the lemmings cheer for the prima donna.
Also.
Tattoosydney
Happy Saturday all.
A dose of musical happiness for the BJ minions – now with bonus swimsuit babes – “Ready for the weekend“.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Hi, honey! Good to see ya. How you doing?
General Winfield Stuck
@freelancer:
We are fighting a phantom country. Which if it actually existed would be called Pashtunistan. It’s the region of SE Afghan. crossing over the border into Pakistan and is really a country of 42 million tribesman. Blame the British and Russians for making faux borders that Pashtun’s could care less about. And they are largely the Taliban.
I don’t think a ground war in this area is going to be successful long term because the other ethnics in Afghanistan neither care to, nor likely could maintain control of the region.
The only possible solution would be for Pak. and Afghan. proper to agree to carve out this area as a separate country. Not going to happen though. And still wouldn’t solve the AQ problem, which at some point we are going to have to focus on, instead of trying to turn Afghan. into Texas.
Patrick
Too late to give ’em a shot of Garrett Juice, John?
John Cole
@Patrick: What is that?
John Cole
@vacuumslayer: I’ve had a variant of that three times this week it was so good- throw some tomatoes, olive oil, basil, salt, pepper, and garlic in a pot, cook it down, then pour over leaf spinach on top of ronzoni wheat pasta and shred a little parmesan over the top. So good.
Roger Moore
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Michelle was pulling down big bucks all by herself until she gave up her job to help Barack’s presidential race. She can afford her own nice clothes without needing to rely on hubby’s money at all. I suspect that’s what really pisses off the wingers.
MysticalChick
I have never been anywhere close to being a gardener and so I used the lovely “Topsy Turvey” tomato planters this year. Beefsteak in one and just plain old tomatoes in the other. The beefsteak hasn’t done all that well, but the other non-beefsteak one offers up a couple really yummy pieces every few days or so. Not too bad for my first try at it.
I’m definitely going to be doing that route again next year and trying some tweaks along with it.
Sorry ’bout your blight, John. The weather has been wonky here in MD as well.
Seebach
Olbermann is going over each and every terror alert announced by the Bush administration and the political context of each one. Someone needs to do this, and I’m glad to see it done.
MikeJ
@Roger Moore: That and something that came up in a previous thread. Wingnuts seem to think , “You’re rich how can you be in favour of treating poor people like humans?” is a devastating argument. They revel in pointing out that many liberals make a good living and don’t understand how those people could care about those less fortunate.
jnfr
@Ash Can:
I feel for you. It isn’t quite so bad with perennials, because they usually will come back, unless they’re very new. But with annuals and veggies, hail’ll kill them off every time.
JGabriel
Roger Moore:
Nah, what really pisses off the wingers is that Michelle and hubby are Black Democrats in the White House. Everything else is just whinging.
.
JGabriel
@MikeJ:
Winger thought process: How can you betray the wealthy like that? I might be one of them someday!
Which reminds me of a conversation with my mother a few months ago. She was talking about her generation (early boomer) was starting to vote more Democratic due to concerns about health care and Social Security.
To which I responded: “So, what you’re saying is that all those people who voted for Reagan finally realized they’re never gonna be rich?”
(Pause)
“Yep, that about sums it up.”
.
JHF
You think you got troubles, I just got blocked by Depak Chopra on Twitter. All I did was tweet a hilarious wisecrack and trying to delineate the ineffable. I thought he’d crack up, and we’d go have a beer.
JHF
ABOUT trying to delineate the ineffable, geez.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
All good – how you?
Saturday morning, which if I was very brave I would say was the first day of spring! 17 degrees (61 in your terms) and sunny… been shopping for chalks and books (Raymond Chandler and Jane Austen) and smallgoods (Portuguese sausage and raclette).
Of Bugs and Books
Courtesy of Oregon State Extension Service some years ago:
IF it is late blight (Phytophthora infestans) – doesn’t USUALLY overwinter in soil or dead host debris (but it and other diseases can, don’t compost).
Disease overwinters in potato tubers, or reintroduced by infected seed potato tubers, tomato transplants, or spores blow in with rain. P. infestans infects only a few closely related plants in PNW – peppers and eggplants slightly (therefore also carriers), a few weeds in Solanum.
Cultural controls not sufficient in a cool and wet year, but:
No dark lesions on starter plants; air dry freshly saved seed minimum 3 days.
Destroy volunteer tomatoes and potatoes (and tubers).
NEVER use overhead irrigation.
Spacing / staking / pruning (esp. infections) for air circulation.
Resistant cultivars rare (some years ago), possibly ‘Matt’s Wild Cherry’.
Copper sprays may help in prevention, but to me, a personal/political blog not a good place to legally / safely explain other sprays / alternating.
Good personal crop this year- lots of organic matter every year (kill bugs with bugs); no pesticides; white reflectors behind young plants; not too much nitrogen (= more easily infected); foliar fertilizing for tight control in timing consequences; sun, sun, and more sun, etc.
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
Yeah, well, Bible Spice had the Xtian decency to wear running tights under her shorts, thnkyewvurymuch. They probly don’t even make them in Michelle’s shade, ifyouknowwuddymean, an’ I think yew dooo!
HRA
We had only 7 days of temps in the 80s here. We only had to water the small vegetable garden and the 8 flower beds.
I got to the arugula before it began to wither. I lost my pepper plants. Yesterday I found 1 pepper hanging from the mess. The tomato plants are all in huge pots. They grew to about 3-4 feet. There are still green tomatoes ot ripen. The squash plants died. One pumpkin plant is still thriving. Plenty of pears last year and not one this year. I lost the basil and parsley plants.
The flower beds are doing better than anything else.
HRA
Oops We only had to water the plants once this year and that’s since the last week in May.
Anne Laurie
Yup, sweat is a great seasoning. Touch wood, our tomatoes — two dozen plants, mostly individual heirlooms or cherrys — are FINALLY producing a reasonable crop of decently-flavoured fruit, only a month or six weeks behind schedule. All grown in planters, because we’re a double Superfund site (not kidding), so between outsourced soil replenishment & isolation from other gardens we’ve managed to avoid the early blight here north of Boston. Half this year’s plants came from a gourmet mail-order source in Arkansas, and the other half from our trusted local garden center, Mahoney’s, which runs their own greenhouses. I have considered posting a full Heirloom Tomato Taste Report on some late slow night, but there haven’t been any of those lately, and at this point, John would probably cut off my access if I did {grin}.
We’ve been careful never to try a profit analysis on our tomatoes. Between buying the plants, the dirt, the expensive planters, the equally expensive ‘towers’, irrigation supplies & so forth, it’s just something to splurge on that makes me happy. Of course, we also have two different now-mature multi-grafted cherry trees that we never get around to netting before the birds eat the fruit — the Spousal Unit needs to see blossoms every spring because he grew up in America’s Cherry Capital. Pure heart-lifters, is all.
Anne Laurie
@Demo Woman:
First year I tried tomatoes in pots, I was finding newly-ripened maters brutally torn off the plants & abandoned on the ground with ONE TINY BITE taken out of each. Consulted a more experienced friend, who thought the chipmunks/squirrels might be looking for water sources. Every year since then, I’ve kept a cheap 14-inch planter saucer full of water on the ground near the tomato pots, and voila, no more rodent depredations!
On the other hand, our dog Zevon lurves him some fresh maters, and does not at all mind picking his own. We’ve moved the ‘main’ planters outside the fence, where he can’t reach them, but I did put in a couple pots of cherry tomatoes in the side yard just for him.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
Hah! Very good.
Still, I don’t think La Palin is wearing tights in all of the “Runner’s World” pics. Fer example:
http://www.runnersworld.com/photo/sarahpalin/slide6.html
And in others she is clearly going after the “Oh, yes. Starbursts” vote:
http://www.runnersworld.com/photo/sarahpalin/slide2.html
http://www.runnersworld.com/photo/sarahpalin/slide4.html
Now, I cut Palin more slack than most people, but her “Runner’s World” photos are little more than cheesy cheesecake. Mrs Obama is clearly dressed appropriately as a mother with her family on an outing at the Grand Canyon.
It’s just tiresome that wingnut fools insist on playing “Must Hate Mrs Obama” games.
Fleem
@Joel:
The hoophouses prevent the blight by keeping the leaves from getting wet. My CSA guy kept all his tomatoes, eggplant and peppers inside his hoophouses so we at least get to eat a few. He had to pull all his potatoes early though, so we got a couple pounds of new potatoes in July this year and that’ll be it, compared to bushels in the fall last year.
Early blight and late blight are two separate diseases. The difference is not related to when they appear. You can tell you’ve got early blight on a plant because you will get a yellow residue on your fingers if you touch the leaves. We pretty much get this every year and deal with it by removing the lower branches of each plant as they start to yellow. It doesn’t affect yield much.
Late blight is a different, and much more evil thing.
chopper
bleh. 6 tomato plants, two didn’t make it past 2 months, two are croaking as we speak and 2 are still chugging along. winter squash didn’t make it, cukes are going south. tons of powdery mildew this year, blight, beetles, aphids, whiteflies, you name it. gardening-wise, this year blew.
muddy
Very important when dealing with late blight (same blight as made the Irish starve), DO NOT compost the discarded leaves or the plant itself. Either burn it or put it in the trash bag, but get it out of your yard!
Tonal Crow
@D-Chance.:
Maybe you should have thought of that before waving the flag for Bush to cut taxes (~$2 trillion from 2001-2011 . http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/20041129orszaggale.pdf ) and lie us into Iraq (likely ~3 trillion. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aJWW_q5WSn1I&refer=home ).
GOPers care about deficits only to the extent that they make good talking points.
tess
@vacuumslayer: Also good is what I call GWOOTT sauce: garlic, wine, olive oil, onion, tomatoes, thyme. Toss together and bake about 20 minutes. Then toss with linguine and some cubed mozzarella. Good that day, incredibly better the next day.
I tend to use either grape tomatoes or very sweet cherry tomatoes, a very small amount of white wine, and red onion. Fresh thyme works best, but I’ve been too lazy to head out to the garden with a flashlight before and found dried isn’t bad.
After reading your combination, I’m going to try adding some arugula to the mix next time. I have a cherry tomato plant giving me about 3 pints or so per week. My brandwines look promising, but as soon as they start to turn pink, the ants take them over. I hate those ants.
tess
brandYwines.
I miss edit.
Oregon Tomaters
“They” always told me that tomatoes wouldn’t grow in Oregon. Too cold, too rainy, all that crummy compacted clay soil.
Well, after spending November-March putting in raised beds that go two and a half feet deep, well amended with compost and gypsum, and covering the bed with black ground sheets… And some good luck with some hot July/August weather….
More tomatoes than I can friggin eat!!!! Brandywine, black krim, bonny best, celebrity, sweet 100, roma, husky cherry red…. all sorts in great abundance.
Wife is getting more mason jars for canning and I will be making a few more batches of tomato-basil sauce to freeze.
sorry to hear about how it’s going in WVA, though
JerseyJeffersonian
Late to the thread, but here is a link to some very sound information on the late blight via the New Jersey Agricultural Extension Service from two experts from Rutgers and Cornell, both academic centers of excellence in horticultural science:
http://njveg.rutgers.edu/assets/pdfs/aw/LateBlightAlertForHomerownerGardens-FactSheet.pdf
Here in NJ, we take our tomatoes seriously. There’s a reason Campbell’s for many years had their principal plant dedicated to the manufacture of tomato soup in Camden, NJ.
The link has some very clear photographs showing the characteristic symptoms of late blight. If you are so unlucky as to be afflicted with this problem, pay particular attention to the directions for disposal of the infected plants.
My own plants are hanging in there. They gave a good early burst of fruit, slowed down in their production, but are giving good indication of more beauties to come. I have learned things about culture issues with the tomatoes that I will be able to apply next year.