A Blight Upon Your Plants!

The boys and I stood dejectedly in the garden. Before us lay the sixty-plus tomato plants that I had grown from seed and carefully nurtured as seedlings. They showed such promise in early June when we planted them out. Tall and green they stood, and their only enemies seemed to be the curious geese that nibbled their leaves.

Then came the blight - the all conquering blight. First the bottom few leaves turned spotted and yellow. These we pulled off, and covered the bare ground around the tomatoes with clean straw to prevent backsplash of the fungus from the dirt below. More and more leaves succumbed to this "spotted fever", and soon the small green tomatoes showed signs of scab. The plants no longer stood, but lay exhausted, their fruits attempting to ripen in the few hot days of August.

The newspaper headlines screamed of early blight disease that traveled from the south - Alabama to be exact - taking revenge on Northern New England tomatoes and potatoes. Fugicides flew off the store shelves. Garden bloggers gave advice on organic remedies sure to help. And still the plants died. No kitchen garden or farm was left untouched by this grim reaper that sent hundreds of thousands of plants to their funeral pyres. Disconsolate canners sigh and their canning kettles lie unused - jars and larders empty. "Oh, for the taste of one vine ripened tomato" is the cry heard from hundreds of lips - the sweet flavor but a distant memory as we force ourselves to by bland tomatoes in the produce section of the local grocery. In this war the South has truly won.

Keeping Busy

It has been almost three weeks since I last sat down to write. Baseball tournaments, frantic afternoons of home schooling paperwork, book ordering, jam making, and "last minute" visits and BBQ's before the new school year blended into what seemed to be one week. Now the girls are both gone to school, and there is a palpable hole in the family.

The boys and I have kept ourselves very busy the last two days so as not to dwell on the girls' departure. Yesterday, I cleaned up the last few things in the girls' room and vacuumed thoroughly, then cleaned out the bathroom of girlish miscellany that was left out and about, making space under the sink for "manly" soap and t.p. A space was made in the medicine cabinet for future shaving needs. All of this greatly pleased the boys who promised vociferously to keep "their" bathroom neat and clean.

I weeded out the lettuce, picked raspberries, cut dill heads for seed, and cut gladiolas. Later the boys helped me pick yellow beans - this time there was enough for supper - and some sad looking tomatoes that were attempting to ripen on blighted vines. (More on the blight in another post.) We feasted on Quiche Lorraine, wax beans, and ice cream/sherbet for dessert.

Today was another beautiful day - autumn-like in flavor and a delight in which to garden. I managed to weed out the asparagus seedlings and the area between the parsley and fence. The garden is beginning to look like a garden again which pleases me very much. I picked more peppermint to dry for tea and flavoring, and then dug up the rogue fingerling potatoes that had wintered over in the blackberry patch. I also trimmed the garlic and cleaned it for storage. William helped me chop up some areas of new poison ivy, Joey put together a soccer net, and Edmund single handedly dragged down small tree limbs that Papa had cut up top. (Of this feat, Edmund was exceptionally proud, and he gave me a full account of how he used a rope to drag down the branches, and how the biggest one took the greatest effort to move the last ten feet.)

Supper consisted of beef stew made with the newly dug potatoes and freshly picked green beans. White flour biscuits - a special request from William - delighted the boys who have difficulty accepting whole wheat flour in their breads.

I think everyone is looking forward to a good night's rest.

Hidden Treasure

I went up to the garden this afternoon to see if there were any beans for supper. No beans. Only flowers. But that is something. The squash plants are still alive - the moats around them have dried somewhat in the sun. There are thundershowers predicted for tomorrow; I can only hope that the rain will be light.

As I was leaving the garden I noticed some very lush tomato plants growing amid even lusher weeds. The seeds must have wintered over in the compost pile Joe made, and in the rich, porous soil they have grown undisturbed and quite happily. I decided to weed around them and as I pulled out handfuls of wild grass, jewel weed, and dandelion, I happened upon a small cucumber. After further investigation I realized that I had found the cucumbers that Joe had planted in early June. They had been forgotten in the rain, mud, and growing weeds. With a grateful heart for small treasures, I picked two spiny fruits and brought them back to the house.

I also picked the first of our cherry tomatoes today - a small orange variety. They were exceptionally sweet. God is good. All the time.