Keep An Eye Out For Late Blight In Your Garden

In order to keep your plants safe, the experts say it’s ESSENTIAL to apply fungicide PRIOR to infestation. That means now is the time to treat your plants. The Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association offers some organic options. The Cooperative Extension Services also provide good fact sheets Here’s another helpful link from the UMass Extension Office.

–Amy

It's All Over But The Brussel Sprouts

Just Add Water Garden In August

And Just as we did back in early May, my husband, son and I shoveled manure from a nearby horse farm onto the raised bed. The difference now is that my almost 4 year old has become a farmer. Without questions or whining, Zach went to the shed, grabbed his wheelbarrow and shovel, attacked the compost pile, only asking for direction once with a jaunty “where do you want it, Mommy?”
Now I can’t say for sure that it’s a summer’s worth of fresh organic vegetables that made the difference, more likely the passage of time, but it was a pleasure watching him grow along with the Just Add Water garden over the last six months.
I look forward to gardening with all of you again next spring!

The dahlias typically bloom until the first hard frost. But, I had such bad results with so many of them this year, I didn’t expect them to ever come around. I’ve attached a photo of a beautiful orange dahlia that we picked this week and put in a vase. Better late than never.

I guess that I will try to get them in the ground earlier next year….or maybe start them inside. Like Amy, I am taking notes. I’ve also vowed to plot the plan of my flower garden this fall, so I remember what lives where next spring. ( I vow to do this every year and never seem to get it done.)

It was not a great summer in our garden. In fact, I’d call it one of the worst in recent memory. But there were a few highlights.

In early August, while searching for a pre-school backpack, my husband and I found some very nice healthy hosta plants on clearance at K-mart. There were many varieties, in gallon pots, all reduced to $1.50 each. It was a steal! After a few return trips, we had planted 75 new hosta in our gardens. They blend in so well, that I couldn’t tell you where we put even half of them at this point. I have had success with some hydrangeas for the first time this year. I wish I had planted more of them! And, my morning glory seed experiment worked too. Our fence is wrapped in vines with little purple flowers poking out here and there.

As we move into autumn, the sedum look beautiful. They are full of bees, and are slowing changing color. I am thankful that they have thrived this year. I’ll be busy picking flowers until the frost.
Let’s all hope for more sunny days in 2010!

For her day off of work, Allison Hale of Burlington, Vermont, decided this would be the perfect activity. Around lunchtime, accompanied by their appetites, she and Mike McGonegal made the trip to Shelburne Orchards to welcome in fall with a bag of hand-picked apples.

Orchards across Vermont are starting to bustle with activity, as crowds turn out to pick what many farmers say is looking to be a bumper crop — in part because of, not despite, the rainy summer weather that has plagued many other crops.

Another likely beneficiary of this summer’s wet weather is the fall foliage, just starting to show its colors in Vermont. Tourism officials say moisture is a key ingredient in bright displays, and the warm days and cool nights we have had recently, have only helped.

Back off. It's Mine

And this Late Blight outbreak pushed me to do something I’m not proud of–purchase a non-organic product. Let me explain. I do most of my growing at my community garden which is strictly organic, but I had a few straggly leftover seedlings that were on their way to the compost pile. You know how gardeners hate to throw away plants, so at the last minute I stuck them in an old apple barrel planter in my driveway. I pretty much ignored them all summer UNTIL, I lost all my other tomato plants. Suddenly, those two plants became my only hope for home grown tomatoes.

The Survivors

And today, I harvested my first “illicit” tomato, sliced with cukes and hummus on whole grain bread. I’m not proud of this harvest, but I did enjoy my sandwich.

This brings me to a question posed by a gardener the other day asking if I knew of any blight resistant varieties. I can tell you anecdotally, that at the community garden, cherry tomato plants seemed to fare better than standard plants. I observed that the foliage got infected, but the fruits survived. Food for thought. I’ve also been reading about a new variety called Mountain Magic that’s supposed to be resistant to both Early and Late blight. It will be available in 2010 seed catalogs.

I’m also passing on a thought provoking op-ed piece about Late Blight from restaurateur and farmer Dan Barber. He makes an interesting connection between disease and renewed interest in home vegetable gardens. In no way is he trying to discourage folks from gardening, just explaning how the blight seemed to sneak up on us this summer. I’ll do a bit more research on blight resistant varieties, while enjoying the rest of my tomatoes.

Plants and sculptures are intentionally within easy reach in raised beds inviting close inspection.

In an era when we’re so often on sensory overload, this is a place to reawaken the senses. Visitors leave refreshed and ready to tackle whatever is waiting on the other side of the garden gates.

Visit the Garden of the Five Senses website..

If you’re growing tomatoes or potatoes in New England this summer, you’ll want to watch for blight on your crops. Blight is a fungal disease. Normally, it appears in the northeast in August. June is very early for the fungus to show up, giving it plenty of time to spread.

I’m attaching this MOFGA Pest Alert which provides helpful photos and suggestions about how to minimize the spread of this disease. Growers believe the fungus hitched a ride on plant material trucked into the big box stores. So, if you bought plant material from one of the big chains, check your plants and be prepared to pull them if necessary.

My name is Julie Cunningham and I’m the producer of “The Secret Life of Animals” on NECN.

While I’m digging the blog (pun intended) this is likely the last time you’ll catch me typing away here with my black thumbs.

Still, I can’t resist the opportunity to cross pollinate with a little information from my own show this week!

If you’re thinking about making the move to an organic lawn or garden, here’s one more reason to make the switch.

Did you know that by going green you’re actually “going blue” and helping to protect the health of the ocean? The experts at the New England Aquarium tell me that even if you live far from the shore, chemical pesticides and fertilizers will often end up in the sea.

Help protect local species like this incredible leatherback turtle by going “blue” today!

Oh – and one more thing. Don’t forget to watch “The Secret Life of Animals” every Sunday at 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. or visit our Web site at www.thesecretlifeofanimals.com.

The OTA, by the way, is based in Greenfield, Mass., if you want to check them out. Think of it as ’surfing local.’