Mid-August Garden Update and the Deadly Late Blight

Well, we thought we had been struck by the late blight on our potatoes. But after talking with a few farmers at the East End farmers market last Saturday, we may just be experiencing an early die-back of the potatoes – meaning they are already ready for harvest. Once it dries out a bit from all our rain, we’ll be digging those potatoes up. The early blight and septoria seem to be doing a job on our tomatoes –but we don’t think they have the deadly late blight as of yet either. Cherries and yellow pear tomatoes are coming in – a couple of handfuls a day now, and a few romas are ripening. The larger tomatoes – I’m not sure those will ripen before we get the Late Blight. It has been confirmed in a few locations in Cortland County – so it is only a matter of time. If you haven’t heard about the late blight, here is a fact sheet put out by Cornell Cooperative Extension. Another good resource is the Vegetable MD Online, also from Cornell Cooperative Extension which lists fact sheets and photos for other vegetable diseases.

Cucumbers have finally begun to come in – hopefully they will continue to produce. Winter Squash is having a hard time, but I have learned that apparently I’m not the only one from talking with other gardeners around the area. The zucchini is beginning to hit its stride, meaning I end up with giant ones before I get a chance to harvest them. Celery is looking good, although the slugs and snails are starting to get to it – so another round of iron pellet slug bait will be needed.

Beans are doing well and we’ll be canning some this evening. I’m excited as I finally purchased a bean frencher, to make French style green beans – I hope it works well (OK – so I get excited about odd things). Fall plantings of carrots, beets, turnips, lettuce, chard, kale, spinach, and peas are all up and growing well in some new raised beds.

In addition to harvesting potatoes for storage, the garlic tops are dying back – so it is time to harvest that for storage also. A few of the “giant” onions tops are also starting to fall over, indicating it is near harvest time them as well.

We are still getting a few raspberries, blueberries, and mulberries. We ate our 1 plum – yes giant harvest on those this year she says oh so sarcastically – thank you DEER. It was really sweet though. Unbelievably, our everbearing strawberries are giving us giant berries still – so they must be liking the unusual summer weather this year. Now, do I make a pie, strawberry shortcake, or . . .