Monthly Archives: August 2010

Wind and Blight

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I came out yesterday and found more of my corn plants loosing the battle against the heavy wind we are experiencing at the moment around here. The meteorologists say it’s not unusual at this time of the year but I’m noticing the wind because it’s damaging many of my plants, especially since I was convinced that this new garden was far better shielded against the wind. I guess I have to improve the protection against the wind next year as this has been a problem for me every year.

I have tried to rescue the rest of my corn plants that are still standing with poles hammered into the ground as a support structure:

As usual, the lazy man’s way to solve trellis problems in the garden – cable binders :-D :

A better solution would have been using old seat belt – or even better: Protection against the wind.

My bean trellis was not strong enough either, as it collapsed when the pressure from the wind increased:

It’s difficult to imagine that this was once a bean trellis but check out this post to see the original structure: Building a Better Bean Trellis

Somehow I managed to rescue the trellis and you might even be able to find some beans in the picture:

Fortunately my tomato plants are well protected against the wind because they are close to the concrete wall, but then they were hit by blight – nobody said this would be easy ;-) . I have tried to do some damage control by removing most of the affected leaves and fruits. Now there’s not much foliage left to do the work but hopefully the plants will be able to cope anyway.

They remind me of my old tomato plants in my old garden. I didn’t prune them because of blight though, but because I wanted the sun to be able to reach the tomatoes. Now I’m not sure what’s more important – foliage or direct sunlight. I just know what we all want: Tasty juicy tomatoes, blight or not.

Back From Vacation

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I took a week of vacation last week away from home and the garden. I was a bit worried what would happen if my garden was left by itself at the peak of the season. The weather turned out to be windy and wet (and so did my vacation :-( ), and below is a series of photos showing what I found when I returned home, but be warned – it’s not a pretty sight ;-) … actually it’s rather awful.

First of all most of the apples blew right of the apple trees before they had a chance to mature, due to the strong wind:

Fortunately my girlfriends dad cleaned up the lawn while we were away – thanks Peder! :-D

This pile of rotting apples is a heaven for sugar craving wasps, but I managed to save some of the apples for jam. There are still some left on the trees so I think we’ll be able to make a decent amount of jam:

Before I left I wrapped my chicken coop project in a tarpaulin and it stayed on the coop the whole week, although the sharp edges punched a few holes in it:

I’m really looking forward to some dry weather so that I’ll be able to finish the project.

The rain water collection tank proves that the weather has been wet, wet, wet. 550 liters in a week:

It turns out that if bird droppings end up in a tank like this you’re likely to get a problem with bacteria if the water is standing still for too long. This can be a problem if you water crops which are not boiled before you eat them since the bacteria is carried into the kitchen.

My bean trellis took a hit by the strong wind and almost collapsed:

But the beans are have been growing fast and new ones are still developing:

My sweet corn plants have also been hit by the wind and one of the plants fell over. Not a pretty sight but hopefully we’ll get some fruits before the end of the season:

The squash plant didn’t waste any time – compare the fruits with my foot to the right:

The fruit near the ground is huge! But I knew that would happen. You need to check the size of your squash fruits every second day during the peak of the season. The same thing happened with my squash a couple of years ago.

Two different kinds of caterpillars in my broccoli?? Jebus… You guys must be hungry. It doesn’t even look tasty anymore:

The strawberry plants decided to grow all over the place:

and the tomato plants got hit with blight and the fruits are rotting… Sigh. :

I hope I can do a bit of damage control by removing wilted leaves and rotten fruits, to help the healthy tomatoes through the season.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a thriving cucumber plant with flowers and healthy fruit:

but my saved pea seeds looked far from healthy. I made the mistake of throwing the pods in a cardboard box with the lid on, so that the moisture couldn’t escape freely which resulted in mold, and some of the peas even started germinating! 2 x sigh… :

To finish off this crappy status, all of the potato fruits fell off and started rotting on the ground:

But then again – the flowers are nice:

I’ll leave you with a lonely bee on a white Cosmos flower:

and a video that show the fencing around my garden that is supposed to shield off against the wind, dammit:

How to Save Potato Tubers from Blight

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Unfortunately all of my potato plants have been hit with blight. After reading a bit about potatoes and blight I found out that Asparagus potatoes is a type that is almost certain to catch the blight each year:

I grew this type of potato in previous seasons and didn’t have any problems but I think it’s because the local weather is different. The old garden was located close to the water with large open areas and windy conditions. This new place is different because it is surrounded by tall trees and fences, further away from the sea.

It is bothering me that the potato fruits containing new seeds is affected by the blight too, so that my potato seed saving project is probably going to stop right here, until next year:

My tomato plants located at one end of the potato rows has also been hit, but fortunately the tomato fruits are still good:

You have to remove the foliage of the potato plants to keep the blight from spreading down into the tubers in the ground. I actually managed to just pull the foliage up out of the ground and leaving the potato tubers in the ground for storage. They’ll stop growing but should be able to keep fresh until we need them in the kitchen:

To avoid a build up of blight in your garden, it’s best if the foliage is burned – Sayonara!:

My garden looks like a forest hit by a wildfire:

Sad, but the potatoes should be okay.

And oh – the plants left behind is the ones with fruits on them, should they win the battle against the blight. Fingers crossed.