Had a lot of rain night before last...3 whole inches!

and I'm trying not to complain too loudly, because we really need the rain, but I have discovered that my tomatoes HATE rain...hoping next year we'll have a greenhouse we can grow them in, because this is ridiculous! The tomatoes have early blight...a fungus that attacks when there is too much rain. We had too much rain right after I set them out, ten days worth, in fact, and they were just snapping out of it, now more rain. There are only a few options for blight...early blight that is...late blight all you can do is pull them up and burn them far, far away from your garden. :(

The first option is the same as late blight, pull them up and burn them. With them so loaded with tomatoes that are ripening, I am opting for keeping them and trying to stymie the fungus with homemade remedies. The first is removing any blighted stems...they usually start appearing at the bottom of your plant as black spotted leaves, which then turn yellow, then the stem turns yellow, then they start drooping really bad and turning black. YUCK! So cut them all off, and cut off any that are too close to the ground, being careful not to touch healthy limbs & leaves. Throw these far, far away, or burn them...do not compost!

Then mix up a solution of 1 heaping tbsp baking soda, 2 1/2 tbsp veg or olive oil, mixed into a 1 gallon sprayer of water...and just before the water is up to the full level in your sprayer, a squirt of dish soap...I use Ivory. Put the sprayer top on, give the contents a good swish and then spray, spray, spray! Spray every inch, top to bottom, and the stems & soil, too. With as many tomatoes as I've got, I have to refill 4 times! UGH! Just treated them the day before yesterday, too, and then it rained again. It's a battle, but all those lovely tomatoes NEED to ripen!

Do NOT water with an overhead sprinkler for your tomatoes, they prefer soaker hoses, and this reduces the "splash" from rain hitting the soil and bouncing back to your tomatoes...spreading the fungus, which lives in the soil.

I read one person's comments about combating early blight...have healthy soil. Well, isn't that just kind of OBVIOUS? How do you get healthy soil? years and years and years of composting, amending, and turning of the soil. I'm only on year 3, and my first year was a drought. Kinda hard to get healthy soil in less than 3 years. Sorry for the rant, but when we're looking for NOW solutions, don't give us something that is years in the future. Sigh.......it's just being snooty.

Another suggestion is to add Epson salts to the soil around your tomatoes, which has magnesium in it, another mineral that tomatoes need which your soil may be lacking in...I have a big tub of it in my bathroom from Sam's Club. It didn't cost a whole lot, so I'm going to give it a try, too. If I weren't being so lazy right now, I'd go get it and tell you the directions, they're printed right on the container...but I am being lazy, so I'll leave that for another day, and see if they actually helped the blight problem or not.

Have a great day!

Sorry it's been so long!!! J.O.B. has been getting in the way...

Trying to keep up with family, church, animals, garden, farmers market, and various other obligations while keeping up on a blog has been...well...difficult. I have been offered permanent status with my job, which is good news, in a way, because I will be able to keep earning a paycheck, which we need right now. On the other hand, it was very hard to accept, because building the house is SO important, as well as taking care of my family, my animals, and my garden. Getting to Farmers Market has been difficult, but I have been able to make it quite often. Sadly my revenue has not been very high. I need more basil! LOL! Seriously, that's what I sold out of first. Sigh... finding time to grow more has been difficult.

Here is a great picture of one of our first Farmers Market set ups. My daughter does the flowers, I do the plants and herbs:

I had great success with my lettuces & kale this year until the rains came and the lettuces drowned (even though they're in raised beds) and the cabbage moths (which my daughter is a bug nut and says they are butterflies) gobbled my kale & broccoli! UGH! Using a home-made deterrent on them, and it's helping, but my broccoli is done for, and the kale will take quite a while to recover.

Here are some pictures of my garden in progress. I bought a few more raised beds from Walmart, and then 2 sets of raised beds from Sam's Club. The ones from Sam's are each only half the size of the singles from Walmart, but the price was right...4 squares for $40...vs each square for $27 at Walmart. I have spent a fortune on soil this year to fill them and all the buckets, too. It's well worth it, though, because the tomatoes & peppers aren't getting over watered and the root veggies are growing nicely, unlike in the clay & rock soil which the garden is mostly composed of. I have mostly onions & shallots in the small raised beds, radishes, turnips, beets, rutabaga and my lettuces & kales in the larger ones.