2024-08 Blight
This month is when a lot of vegetables and fruits are harvestable. The onions in one bed were massive. They really seemed to like the conditions.
We had a great crop from inside the greenhouse. Growing less made everything more manageable this year.
Because we were overproducing, we queried local neighbours to see if they wanted anything. Some zucchini went to waste as we couldn’t use them in time before they turned. We’re going to start looking more at picking and other long term storage methods.
Last month I had updated the gardening section of this website and mentioned that we had not had any problem with potato blight. This tempted fate and almost every potato plant got hit hard by blight. The leaves started with patchy discolourations which at first I thought were watering stress on a couple of plants or exhausting nutrients but then over a few days the leaves melted off whole plants and patches of plants as if they were wax in the sun.
As a result we harvested the potatos about 3-4 weeks earlier than we would have. One plant has stubbornly survived and looks to be thriving, but all others we harvested. We got a slightly larger crop than last year but it felt like a bit of a shame.
Next year we’ll use blight-resistant varieties and we have some ideas for better planting. I also need to build a fire pit for burning diseased plants as it’s not a good idea to put them on the compost heap.
On other topics, it felt like August was mostly taken up by study and travel for a workplace exam that I had to take. There is a lot going on with this and it is still ongoing. I’ll write about it when it is all over. I felt like I couldn’t commit to much garden work because of this however.
One task I did help with was a wood delivery for building arches in the garden. These are for plants to grow on and for slowing down the inter wind speed around the garden, such that the plants have more shelter. The apple trees, which looked quite ill their first year, are starting to do really well so this should help them. We had to cut a lot of apples off early because they would have been too heavy for the young trees. It took a lot of time to build the most complicated arch but it looked smart and helped make an entrance to the “adventure path” that swings around the outside of the garage.
We planted two new Hydrangea trees next to the existing one, so that they might each give the others some shelter during high winds. We also planted an apple tree down the bottom of the garden where it should have some shelter and have space to expand. We hammered some tree support posts into the ground which takes a long time. We are trying to give each tree three support stakes with a hessian strap to reduce wind rock during storms.
Towards the end of the month there were a lot of mushrooms in the forest. We went out Kanterella mushroom picking and managed to gather enough for a meal (with pasta and cream). We also took a lot of photos of various mushrooms in the forest.
August is also the local “Raggare” festival, where everyone that has an old antique car, sportscar, or other oddity brings them out and does laps of the local town. There is lots of alcohol and loud music. This year we saw mustangs, corvettes, and a wheeled charriot pulled by 8 huskies! We attended and chatted to friends, and then, because our house is right next to the festival, slept when the music died down in the early hours. In the morning I went out to help with the clear-up duties. Watching all the cars, I sometimes have irresponsible thoughts about what sportscar might fit in the garage, but I cant justify the cost.
