I haven’t posted any garden pics in a while, so here is a giant dump of pics from the past month.
On a side note during a random conversation with my next door neighbor who works on a organic CSA farm. We started to talk about my backyard garden and I was telling him about some of the disease issues that I was having with my tomatoes. And he was telling me that some of the seeds that Lowe’s was selling this year were infected with powdery mildew. And in an unrelated conversation my mom was also telling me about disease issues with tomato & cucumber plants this year.
Since my garden is very small, crop rotation isn’t possible. So next year it looks like I’ll finally have to bite the bullet and bust out the heavy duty agro chemicals, specifically a soil fungicide and maybe even a broad spectrum herbicide. I’ve gone about 2 or 3 years without using any chemicals in the garden, but the disease issues this year on the tomatoes/beans/cucumbers/basil/peppers, are about as bad as I’ve every seen it. This isn’t something that I’m looking forward to doing, but if I want to harvest anything from the garden next year, it has to be done.
4 comments on “Garden Pictures – End-September 2009”
Man I loved that Treehouse of Horror, in how he went on a “vision quest” after eating the pepper. (Also funny in relation to the Aji Limo item that I just posted, and how my mom mention the same “jungle” look that the garden is sporting.) You know I’ll ask my farmer neighbor a couple more questions on the chemical front and what they use on the organic farm where he works. But he did mention to me about “burning the fields” and how it is good natural way to clear out some of bug/blight problems that might have built up in the soil.
It looks like you could grow The merciless peppers of Quetzalacatenango in that jungle primeval.
I think you should really focus on getting your soil naturally healthy before dumping chemicals all over it. You should also check what garden crops do well in your area and focus on getting those types from reputable local producers (My .02¢).
I might have to give that a try next year.
Rene… one thing you could try. Early in the season, when you notice any bugs on the plants, pick a bunch of them off, put them in a jar, smash them up and add some water. Put that mixture in a spray bottle and spray the produce. The dead bug goo is known to cause a colony collapse for that species. Worth a try before you go to chemos.