Screw this blight. Seriously. I am ANGRY at The Blight. I wish to seek REVENGE on The Blight. Except how does one go about exacting revenge upon a fungus?
It's all very irritating.
The Blight has spread to the potatoes. So I spent a couple of hours yesterday cutting off all the potato foliage (known, incidentally, as haulms--your vocab. lesson for the day). The nasty, wet, rotting potato foliage. And then I shoved it all into garbage cans to be hauled down to the beach for burning. It's dirty, sweaty work, made worse by the smell of rot and decay and the fact that I may still have been too late to keep the fungus from spreading to the potatoes underground and destroying the whole crop.
Pointless labor is so very unsatisfying.
The anger at The Blight only comes when I reflect upon the hours and hours I spent planting and hilling potatoes (and remember--I HAAAATE hilling). To say nothing of planting, coddling, transplanting, constructing intricate supports for, and tying up all those tomato plants. The Blight WOULD affect two of the most labor-intensive crops in the garden. Also the two biggest.
The Blight hit me where it hurts--potatoes and tomatoes. My two most favorite garden crops. It's been a difficult year for gardening, no doubt. A year with too much rain is worse than a year with not enough. As depressed as I am about all of this, however, I feel even more sorry for all those people who decided to start gardening this year. And there were a lot of them. I hope they don't get discouraged and give up. Because one of the nicest things about gardening is the opportunity to try again the next year.
Hope for next year--it's what keeps all gardeners going.
End Hallmark message.
I understand your frustration completely. Our gardening year wasn't the greatest either. Some of the tomato plants just withered up and died, the cabbages were devoured by cabbage worms, the zucchini by squash bugs and the whole garden was hit hard with white fly. Arrgh... All the work, the watering, the weeding for (almost) nothing...
ReplyDeleteBetter luck next year...
I have pretty much given up on the garden this year. At one stage we had 5 straight days of POURING rain. I lost almost ALL of my crops to rot. So discouraged :c/ My tomatoes and cucumbers were the one saving grace in that bizarre little polytunnel thing I built lol. But I will of course try again next year. Hopefully with the help of a poly tunnel.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the babby btw :c)
I just found your Blog today after starting to read Drew Kime's free canning chapter.
ReplyDeleteI know just what you mean about the potatoes - I had 250 hills that in two days went from looking like the best i had ever had to a waste land. I cut all the tops off - hilled up over the part of the tops still in the ground and waited a week to start digging - I would say 25% are bad now that i started to dig. Some are already gone - some have the spots and will be bad soon. The ones just with the spots are being eaten everyday to save something - we are truly living on potatoes now :-)
I hope you get to have some that are good - this was my first year planting anything but reds. I had some russets that look great but about half of them are bad - seems they get in more. The whites did the best - the fingerlings the worst.
I don't have another garden around my for miles so the blight most have come in the air - OR - in the Bonnie plants I put out. I was reading online and found a news story that said that Bonnie plants had the blight on them from the GREENHOUSE this year. What fuckin' joke!!!
SO now i see your are in Upstate NY - ME too...... I am 30 minutes or so South of Utica--- you?
ReplyDeleteJust started reading your blog and loving it. I almost lost half of my tomato crop to blight earlier. Have you tried a sulfur spray or dust? I swear, it saved my 'maters. It was a pain, and it was stinky, and after chopping off all the blighted foliage the plants looked pitiful, but I'm still getting a harvest from them months later.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes to you and your garden! It really has been an odd year, all over the country, I think!
amen.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so apparently this year has sucked for EVERYONE, nationally AND internationally. Next year has to be better, right?
ReplyDeleteChad: The blight spores do travel through the air, I believe. Several miles even, I think. We dug up one hill of a russet variety just today, and they look great. But they are always the first to mature, so they probably had a head start on the other varieties as far as resistance goes. I know this blight can manifest itself much later, after the potatoes are stored, making rot more likely over the winter. Lovely.
As for where in upstate New York I live . . . not by Utica. But I won't get anymore specific than that. I prefer to be a Woman of Mystery.
Also, I apparently prefer to be delusional. A Woman of Mystery? When I write about myself EVERY SINGLE DAY? Yeah.
Julie: I don't know if CO is dealing with the same blight we're battling here in NY, but I haven't sprayed anything. I know copper-based fungicides can be effective if applied BEFORE the blight appears, as a preventive measure, but I didn't do that. For a couple of reasons: 1)I am lazy, and 2)The sprays have to be re-applied every time it rains. It's been raining almost every day (which is one reason the blight is so pervasive), and it would just be too time-consuming, expensive, and probably ineffective anyway trying to keep the spray on the plants when it keeps getting washed off. I'm glad it worked for you, though. Nice to know someone has had some success.
Oh, I'm so sorry. You have an excellent point about Hallmark. I hardly ever send cards because they're too mushy and I'm not. But if they had a section of inappropriate cards, I'd drop a ton of money, I'm sure. For instance, "Blight sucks big green ones and I'm so sorry for your shitty loss." Love, Susan
ReplyDeleteK...maybe you can pitch the idea to Hallmark! I'd buy more cards if they were a little more....real.
ReplyDeleteI did a little container cardening here, and all 3 of my tomatoes got the funk. Oddly enough, my teeny chile pepper plants is chugging along like a champ...
I am one of those first time gardeners. I was looking forward to making all things tomato this year. I planted and cared for 32 plants and each and everyone of them got the Blight. I never got to even taste one. I'm not giving up. I am already thinking about next year. Besides getting rid of the plants, do I have to do anything to the soil so it doesn't get them again next year? Any help would be great.
ReplyDeleteJean: Just make sure you don't compost the plants. The fungus dies in cold winters, so you should be okay for next year, although it is always advisable to rotate your garden so you don't plant the same things in the same places two years in a row. In the case of tomatoes, that means not planting where there were tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, or peppers the year before. If you always grow things in the same spot, it's more likely diseases and pests will develop and stick around.
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHA
ReplyDeletehallmark should get with the times ;)
sorry about your blight - but I agree about too much rain being worse than not enough - last year I got exactly 1 tomato - they ended up under water - this year (TOUCH wood) looks a little better but still not the joy of 3 years ago ...
If Hallmark included more profanity in their greeting cards, you'd better believe they'd get more business from THIS lady. Because sometimes the other words just don't get it done.
ReplyDeleteI hear you, my mom had trouble with her tomatoes & potatoes this year. I was talking to a lady at the farmer's market that lost all of her tomatoes as well. I'm thinking of taking her a few next week when I go.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I try to remember when I lose an entire crop of something (to deer damage usually) is that I don't have to survive on this food. I'm glad I live in the time I do where my garden produce isn't the only food I'll have. I can buy tomatoes if I lose all of mine (not that I want to buy tomatoes).
Hugs. Your version of the Hallmark language is more realistic.
ReplyDeleteYou know what, you're right. I bet a lot of the new gardeners we keep hearing about entering the hobby were needlessly discouraged by this year's weather and resulting SHITTY BLIGHT.
ReplyDeleteIt's like you want to run after them going, "No really! It's fun! This usually works! Come back!"
Next year. I know it. It will be awesome and blight free.