Beetles, Blight, and Bonnaroo

So I have seriously neglected my blogging duties. The good news is that although I haven't been writing about it, I have not neglected my garden and it's doing pretty well. In the last month already busy due to finishing up the school year, a trip to Tennessee for the Bonnaroo music festival , and beginning to train for a fundraising marathon, there have been a few issues in the garden. On a side note, I have to say my experience at Bonnaroo was fabulous. Four days of camping, great shows, and a huge crowd of laid-back people turned out to be even more fun than I expected. My lovely neighbor was kind enough to watch the dogs and the plants while we were gone. In late May before we left, my cucumbers and squash were plagued by stripped cucumber beetles. My tomatoes came down with a case of early blight that they are still recovering from. On my step-father-in-law's recommendation, I purchased some insecticidal soap, which seems to be getting rid of the bugs better than the garlic-cayenne pepper concoction I was trying. It's still organic. With help at one of the friendly local gardening stores, my tomatoes were diagnosed with early blight (a fungus) and I have been treating them with a a copper/zinc spray. One of the chemicals used in the spray happens to be similar to the dimethylzinc molecule Ryan was researching for his dissertation. The spray is organic and I was told it was the most natural thing I could use, but today I was mixing up a new batch and actually read the whole pamphlet and it's really toxic. I knew I needed to wait five days after spraying for harvest, but I'm also supposed to wear long sleeves/pants/washable gloves while spraying and wash them all separate from other clothes. I think I'm going to start covering my basil with plastic when I do my weekly anti-fungicide so that I can harvest it as often as I want without worry. I'd like to stop using the spray, but the blight is still there even with it and I've already lost a ton of the bottom leaves on all my plants. So far the fruit haven't been affected by the blight and I have harvested two tomatoes from my Pink Beauty and a handful of Black Cherry Tomatoes. My other tomato plants each have a full sized fruit but are still green. The tomatoes are taller than I am and I need to figure out something to support them since they have long outgrown their cages. (Photo 1 &4 shots of the garden, #2 the yellowed tomato leaves, # 3a closeup of my bell pepper, which will probably never turn orange since the tomatoes are hogging all the sunlight!)

breaking ground

I often get excited about projects and start them with gusto but never quite finish them. For those familiar with Myers-Briggs personality types, I am INFP, and apparently this is a common trait for my type. I think I read something about us being perfectionists and things are never quite perfect enough to be finished. I'm not sure if perfectionism is at the root of my unfinished business, although I've already edited and reposted this initial blog post 5 times so it might not be entirely untrue. In April while I was off from teaching and my mother-in-law Glad and her husband Ian were in town for a visit. I, as I often do, had a project in mind. I wanted to start my first garden. I was hoping due to the physical needs of the garden, unlike my paintings, which sit quite happily with no need for water or fertilizer or protection from pests, I would be more motivated to regularly invest some time in my new hobby. I already had a few seedlings I had purchased on an impulse buy at the co-op, a bag of potting soil from the farm store, and more seedlings that caught my eye on that trip. I also had a small patch of sandy dirt that I had attempted to clear of weeds in my backyard. My in-laws were kind enough to donate their vacation time to helping me start this endeavor. After some discussion, multiple trips to farm and hardware stores, 30 bags of compost, and some bonding while working with the in-laws I found myself with a lovely raised garden bed. I promised pictures of the garden and joked that I would start a blog. Little did I know, I would become slightly obsessed and very proud of my garden. My new habit of checking on the garden's progress multiple times a day and sharing cherry tomato counts with anyone who will listen has led me to think that blogging might be a fun and slightly less annoying way to share my new hobby with people who actually want to hear about it. So here we are. (Photos: my garden on day one, my garden today, my six cherry tomatoes)