I know what Peekaboo did today! He ran through the DE in Hero's bowl and took a circuitous route to hide under the couch!
I know what Herb did today! He finished the chicken tractor! There are just a few more bits of chicken wire needed here and there, a tarp to cover the back half, a couple of hooks to hang feed and water from the top, and a rope to pull it with. I think he did a fantastic job, and I can't wait to put the chickens in it!
This is what I did today. I cut down all the late-blighted tomato plants and put them in black plastic garbage bags. I managed to save a small bucket of green tomatoes, but that is the end of our tomatoes. :( I personally think Herb has more to show for his day's work!
If your tomato plants look like ours did, they are likely suffering from late blight. They can't recover (as we hoped, until I did some research online), and most of the tomatoes they manage to put out will rot before ripening. They will also spread the blight into the air where it can be carried great distances by the wind. And blighted plant material left on the ground could reinfest tomato plants next year. I will double-bag the infested plant material with heavy duty black plastic bags, and we will take them to the landfill. Most home composting systems cannot compost at a high enough temperature to destroy the blight. I learned all this from Doug Greens' Blog,
http://blog.douggreensgarden.com/tomato-blight/
And this is all I have to show for what I did today, a few sad pepper plants that grew out from under the tomatoes and are now staked up for a second chance. Ah, well, such is life! Sometimes the most important job to be done is just cleaning up a mess, and the only satisfaction is in knowing the mess is gone!
Peeky man is so cute! So sad about those tomatoes. So will you have to replant all next year?
ReplyDeleteYes, you have to plant new ones each year because they only live one season, but they should keep bearing until the first frost--if they hadn't gotten late blight. We've learned a few things for next year, though, like spacing them farther, cutting off lower branches once they are done bearing, building a better support system, and trying to choose some varieties that are blight resistant. I hear some peoples' tomatoes never did anything, so I guess we can't complain.
ReplyDeleteCarrie says what a great pic of Uncle Herb!
ReplyDeleteBarbara
Thanks, Carrie! I can always count on him for a good picture! (Like the one on "Digging Up Dirt"!
ReplyDeleteP.S. I could have titled that post "Dirty Old Man"--if I didn't ever want him to do another job for me! :) Oops! I forgot to close my parenthesis in the quote above, so here goes.)
ReplyDelete