Its been nearly a week since I have been out to my plot. Last time I was there, I found several spots of late blight on my potatoes. I was expecting the worst today. I haven't been out to the garden because of the constant rain this past week.
I suppose the garden looked better than I expected. Here's a list:
- Fava beans look great, lots of tiny pods forming.
- Corn is nearly waist high and looks great.
- The pumpkins are starting to vine, maybe 3 feet long now. Not bad.
- Melon plants are still tiny :(
- Lots of lettuce, but its quickly bolting. I don't see much new slug/snail damage.
- Basil is just sitting there, tiny plants, same with peppers :(
- Not much going on with the summer squash. I had lots by now last year. Only a few blossoms so far and small plants.
- The garlic is starting to die back.
- Celeriac and parsnips are growing slowly.
- One tiny sweet potato plants is getting a couple of leaves.
- I'm impressed with the onions I grew from seed this year. They look great. No bulbs yet, but looks like they'll bulb soon.
- Beets look great: red, pink and white ones.
- Radish look good but are terrible inside. The three I pulled were mealy and fibrous inside with some worm damage.
- Potatoes are fading, especially the early varieties, Norland and red gold. The Russets and Green Mountain look good. I cut down all of the Norland's as its probably blight. I also cut down all volunteer potato plants from my paths.
- Saddest is the tomatoes. Terrible blight on the stems and lower leaves. I removed plants with stem blight (7 of 16 plants) and removed all affected lower leaves.
- And I did A LOT of weeding. Weeds are growing great!
Harvest: One volunteer Russet potato plant gave me a big bag full of potatoes. Also, 4 nice heads of lettuce.
8 comments:
The news reports here in Rhode Island have been talking about blight with the tomatoes and potatoes, however, I have been lucky no blight here in my little garden. Is there a way to prevent it??
My home garden has no signs of it fortunately. I think community gardens are probably the worst. I hear it spreads very easily.
I think you should watch your plants carefully and at the first sign, remove infected growth and dispose of it in a plastic bag in the trash or bury it at least 2 feet deep.
I hear infected seedlings were sold by several major stores, which has caused this problem. I raised all mine from seed, but I bet other nearby plots have infected plants.
I don't think there's any hope with a community plot, so I'm figuring no tomatoes there next year. This is the second bad year in a row for tomatoes. Last year leaf spot fungus killed them before fruiting.
You could also keep your fingers crossed for some dry weather!
Our basil was very sad for a long time after transplanting - light yellowish green leaves and slow to grow. It's finally starting to look happier with darker green leaves. The next 4 or 5 days look sunny and warm, so hopefully that'll help. Our peppers have hardly done a thing, still only like 6" tall and 4-6 leaves. Basically, anything that likes it hot and sunny is just not happy.
Sorry about the sweet potato plants... like 2/3 of the ones we got died, though I think we have 4-ish that are growing (very slowly). Our potatoes all look awesome, I really hope we got lucky with our varieties and can avoid late blight, at least until they've made good sized tubers. I'm not too optimistic about the tomatoes, but so far so good. Maybe we're upwind from everyone else? One can hope.
Nice looking beets Kathy ... I grew Chioggia's as my early beet and I have AMAZING beet tops ... but really minimal beet root. Back to Detroit's since I already grow chard and so who needs amazing beet tops.
Sorry to hear about your blight problems. At least you don't have to emigrate. But Hey ... you live in Boston where at least half of the population knows about the potato famine.
What's with the basil and radishes this year? I'm in Oakland, CA and have the exact same problem. Last year's radishes were delicious but this year they are so mealy and fibrous. And my basil is just sitting there, hasn't grown a speck since I planted the seedling (my herbs are the only thing i don't grow from seed). No tomato blight out here though. I did grow a new item this year called Komatsuna. My mom picked up a pack of seeds somehwere and it was delicious!
The beet photo is Chiogga. Roots are not large my Lutz and Detroit, but medium size and SO sweet. I don't know why I don't like chard and love beets tops. Hmmm.
My basil was very sad for quite a few weeks after I planted, but now, I can't keep up!
I think a few of my pepper plants have blight - very sad as I only planted one of each variety.
As far as weeds, my gardener friend in NY reports that weeds are the new roughage! LOL!
Its all looking pretty healthy, so you are getting something right, but then after 20 years you already know that.
Growing Tomatoes
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