Saturday, September 27, 2008

September 27, 2008

Well, today was fun.  I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked.  Roofing the shed took up most of the day, but I did get the hoop cover brackets installed before my eldest skinned his knee and wanted a smoothie to make him feel better.  Smart kid.



Of course those were 3/4 inch brackets and 1 inch pipe.  See I bought the brackets last year but the pipe this year.  In the mean time, petroleum products skyrocketed and the 3/4 inch was $1 cheaper than the 1/2 inch, so that's what I got.  So what if my hoop covers aren't interchangable. 

While I was installing the bracket on the small bed, I saw this cucumber leaf.  It's amazing how covered it is with whatever the wilt or blight.



Pretty cool.  And I found no less than 6 baby cukes growing.  Not sure I'd make up a whole new batch of pickes for one jar, but we'll see what my brother has growing.  You never know.

Of course, to install the hoop covers, I'd need to take down the trellis.  Next year I may cut it into three trellises, one for each bed so I could take them down individually.  I think I can easily remove the tomato SWC since it's got "blight" and I read about wrapping individual tomatoes in newspapers.  Not sure how you'd tell if they were ripe covered in newsprint?  Worth a try since I don't want to hang my blighted plants upside down in my garage. /shrug  Still a lot to learn.

As far as my blueberry bushes, about all I got done about planting them was to move them to the rose garden from my veggie garden.  They're within 10 feet of their final resting spots.  Tomorrow.

Lastly, I thought I'd share my potatoes.  You may recall that a week ago my potato plants were just starting to die back...



Well today, I looked and presto!



Wow this is happening fast.  I definitely have to cover them to let the dirt dry out to toughen the skins over the next two weeks.

Gonna be a full day tomorrow. On top of my full day, I want to help my aunt spruce up her flower garden.  She's got a bush for me to replace the big hole in my front yard.  Perfect, hehe!

Enjoy your garden.

3 comments:

  1. That white stuff on your cucumber leaves is powdery mildew. It will in time consume the entire plant, if frost doesn't get it first. But fear not, there's nothing to be done. This is the natural course of decline for all curcubits this time of year in the PNW. The decreasing light and temperatures weaken the plant until it can no longer resist the powdery mildew. Its time has come.

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  2. Yep, that's powdery mildew. I can't wait to see how many potatoes you have. I hope it's alot!

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  3. I pulled all my summer squash and cucumbers out this week. They were still producing, but I just hated looking at all that powdery mildew. I have one young plant that is just beginning to get crookneck squash, but the mildew is getting to it, too. Bummer.

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