I've been really bad about posting the last few weeks - it's been very, very busy here. Don't believe me. You should see the state of my house. Ewww. Anyway, I was originally going to post about all the food I've been blessed to harvest, but then I went out in to my garden and was greeted by several things I'd rather not see, and some I'd love to see more of.
So first up. I was trimming baby greens for lunch today and decided that I just might add some spinach to the mix. While looking in my spinach pot I saw some powdery mildew. Gross - but easily corrected. I moved my spinach over to a sunnier spot because sun kills mildew (even better than Chuck Norris.) Period. So here I was innocently trimming my spinach when I was confronted by a strange looking piece of wood. Only it wasn't wood. It was a slimy giant man eating slug. I thought we lived in the Great White North. Slugs should NOT be this big. On a side note - I have a good friend currently residing in Dakar, Senegal. I'm sure when she sees this post, or the facebook picture, she will laugh at my concept of a giant man eating slug.
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| Giant Man Eating Slug on your 12:00 |
Sadly for the poor slug, he found himself on my trowel and quickly exiting stage right... slugs gross me out, and I'd rather be the one eating my spinach thank you very much.
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| GMES about to exit stage right |
Next up on my list of things I'd rather not see? Leaf miners. These little guys are the pits. I've had them every single year I've been gardening. I'd love to say they are following me, but in reality, the issue is that there just isn't a good way to prevent/kill them. Sadly, the most effective way to deal with leaf miners is by growing healthy plants in a healthy, diverse ecosystem. With the rampant use of chemical pesticides, we've managed to kill off significant populations of predatory insects which would help to keep our leaf miner population low. So far the best strategy I've found is seek and destroy - watch for the miners, and ruthlessly cut back any damaged leaf material. This helps keep them in check and prevent a large infestation. However, in a perfect world? We wouldn't be over using pesticides and would have large armies of predatory insects coming to our rescue! So please, listen to this public service announcement and think before you spray
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| Leaf Miner mine on a leaf of Swiss Chard |
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| The actual larvae |
After meeting the GMES and The Miners, I was feeling rather sad and despondent. So, I decided to take a moment and count my garden blessings. I may have some gross creepy-crawlies out there, but I'm also blessed with a generally healthy, happy, productive green space. My potatoes are in full bloom. Their lovely pink flowers make them one of my all time favourite vegetables to grow because they are tasty and gorgeous. My potatoes might not have many actual tubers though - the foliage is rather large, which generally means there is too much Nitrogen in the soil... however, whether we get tubers or not, I'll still enjoy the flowers!
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| Potato flowers |
My raspberry plant really shouldn't have produced anything this year - however, there is a small cluster of green berries starting to fruit. I was worried they would have died off last week with the cooler temperatures, but they are hanging in there! Let's all keep our fingers crossed shall we?
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| First raspberries starting development |
Tomato flowers. And I have lots of basil. Enough said.
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| Tomato flowers |
A quick picture of my first Weird or WHAT? moment. My Italian parsley just randomly decided to grow a second type of leaf structure. Where is William Shatner when I need him?
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| Weird or WHAT? Two different leaf structures from the same plant. |
So all in all, that is my garden round up. I'm hoping I have significantly more "things I like to see" moments versus "things I don't like to see" moments in the future... but that is the joy of gardening isn't it?
Happy growing!
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