Organic gardening is not pretty and is entirely luck of the draw, some years you do well, some years you roll craps. In other words, some years you use pesticides and fungicides - both gifts from above, don't let anyone tell you otherwise, and some years you don't get around to it until too late. The garden has been through some changes. So far this season I've lost seven tomato plants - more than I have ever lost before. In a normal year I might have a single non-starter that dies early and maybe one that produces briefly and then turns to dust.
This year has not been a good year in the garden, I planted more this year that I have ever before with an eye towards giving a lot away and still being able to put a lot up. This has not come to pass, I haven't given away a single tomato! and I have frozen only eight. It is a bad year for freezing and putting up, its a good thing I don't really like tomatoes for causal eating or this would be a real blow.
I'm not sure if its clear, but that is a empty hole where I had planted a bunch of tomatoes. To the far right is some hateful suckers from a useless tree I would have had removed but my neighbors really like it .
I did plant more than normal, so I have quite a few plants left hat are still more or less producing
Most of these will never ripen. I don't know if they are getting eaten by evil beasties or they just wither, I haven't found a lot that have been violated and I'm not finding a lot of ripe or even going-to-be-ripe fruits. Its odd.
This is odd
It used to be two and now its one. Its probably going to die. I know this because it has the same skin condition most of them have
Things aren't completly bad, there is some good news
They don't look too bad and if I keep a close eye on them I'm going to hopefully be useing them in my soups this winter.
The bright spot of the garden are the peppers! I've put a lot of these up and even managed to give some away.
These plants in this bed have done much, much better than what I planted in the "old" garden. They have been watered in the same manner and had the same weather. They have no skin conditions and have been growing quite happily and getting ripe and fat. I take fruits off about every other day. I need to get back to putting them up because I have been enjoying them with too many meals. I need to be more responsible with them because they are also finite.
As part of an experement, I planted what I thought were leeks but were probably really just green onions. I planted a butt load of these with great effort.
I have pulled two other plants. All the rest didn't make it.
Speaking of plants that didn't make it
My corns produced weird, shrunken little ears that were not eatable. They plants withered and I pulled them out. I came back from vacation and they had come back as well. Thus far, no ears, but its nice they came back to try again.
So for next year we are going to make some changes, I'm not sure what is going to change - apart from the sprinkler doing the watering, that is off the table, the drip hoses will be coming off the bench for sure but other things are going to have to be severely tweeked.
It was a bright day today! The blanching pot and I have a date!
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