Olericultural musings
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September 3
Just a quick update to add a photo of my purple carrots! They are orange on the inside, and taste just like regular carrots, except more so, because they are fresh.
September 2
Well, I'm feeling a bit discouraged. This is the year for plant diseases, weeds, and all-around crop failure chez nous. We finally ate some lettuce on Friday (bitter!) and by Tuesday, some varmit had eaten the lettuce plants. The spinach and beets were eaten as seedlings, and pretty much everything has a disease or infestation of some kind.
The broccolis recovered from a serious munching early on, and now seem really healthy (I love how blue they are)
And the chard is pretty indestructable (or just fast-growing enough to recover from occasional munches)
...but my beloved squashes are near death. They got powdery mildew from the damp, cool conditions this year. Here's one, about 1/2 way towards death.
Here's one about 90% dead. Apparently, this region isn't great for squash (too hot?) but this will surely not stop me next year.
The tomato plants were all weakened by various fungal diseases, except this one, Dad's Sunset. Weird.
We've gotten a lot of cherry tomatoes, but the leaves are falling off and stems drying up. Early fall this year.
The one thing that's really growing like gangbusters is my sunflower crop. The orange ones are about 7 feet tall, and there's one that is well above my reach (10 feet?). Last week, the big guy finally bloomed, and its flowers are YELLOW. So I guess a seed from some other variety was in the packet.
Up close view...
There are tons of bees everywhere on these guys. I've only been stung once so far.
They also attract goldfinches.