The Green Nutmeg melons have failed for the 2nd year in a row. I’m not going to restart them like I tried last year. Will have to decide next year if I want to try for a 3rd. This time looks like an insect chewed them all to bits.
Most of the rest of the garden is doing very well. Despite the fact that our weather has been swinging hard. A low of 46(F) on June 26th, and a high of 100 today (and possibly higher tomorrow!). I thought I was going to lose the Hungarian Hot Wax peppers, but they appear to have finally picked themselves up. Most everything else is climbing for the sky and looking awesome.
For anyone else in the north-east corner of the country: be aware that Cornell has IDed a new tomato/potato blight!
The infected tomato plants found in Onondaga County were destroyed, and vegetable pathologists at Cornell are now working to determine what fungicides will be effective in managing what appears to be an unknown or uncommon strain of late blight.
Growers can identify late blight by looking for black or brown lesions on leaves and stems of tomato and potato plants.
The disease thrives in humid, wet conditions and can spread quickly from field to field and over several miles.
Last week I stopped into one of the local farms to buy a quart of fresh, locally grown, perfectly ripe, strawberries (priced $5.50), only to discover that they had flats (8 quarts) on sale for $30, as a one day sale. I came home with a flat of strawberries I wasn’t planning on! Made regular strawberry jelly. Made a strawberry & wine jelly. Ate close to a quart just as is. Canned up 14 1/2 pints of whole berries in light syrup. And used my Instant Pot to juice out the rest of them (I froze the juice) for later making of more jelly or strawberry syrup or the like. Then, this past Friday, I stopped in at a different farm to check on their predicted date for having sweet corn (they produce some of the best sweet corn I’ve ever had), and they also had strawberries, so I picked up another quart. After eating close to a 1/3 of them I froze the rest in sugar in a quart jar. So yah, we have strawberries for the year…….
Pictures of my garden today:
Your gardens look great! I’ll bet they really like the hot weather we’ve had lately – as long as they have been getting enough water anyway. Sorry your melons flubbed. I never had any luck with any type of melon. Peppers seem to perk up when it starts warming – they were just freezing to death 🙂
MMM, strawberries – now I have a craving!
Melons are iffy for me. Some varieties definitely do better than others. But I really wanted to try these, and last year’s weather was so screwy……oh well.
Oh, and totally strawberries! I normally just buy a quart and call it done, but the sale price was to much to resist…..