New York Renovator

She’s always ready to help.

We’ve had a big problem with mildew this year, thanks to the uber-abundant rain, two hurricanes and humidity. My poor furniture is suffering, and I can’t seem to keep the mildew away. Lots of other folks have been having the same problem. And I saw just yesterday that some gardeners are now dealing with late-season blight that’s striking tomatoes and potatoes again. Ugh, when will the wetness ever end.

Anyway, while we clean Livvy gets to have fun. And that’s always important, isn’t it? Today she was so cute– I got a big box in the mail and before we could even open it, she was all over the box in curiosity. She’s such a doll, so curious and innocent. I love this baby. The box contained my new lasagna pan! Oh, I was hoping for a samsung lcd screens, sure , but I needed a lasagna pan. I’ve been using a 13×9 inch pan and… let’s just say you can’t make good lasagna with such a tiny pan. I got a honking monster, stainless steel and everything. Gonna make a whopper apple crisp in it, too!

So how are you doing this fall? Do you do any fall cleaning? Cooking? Have a great weekend, friends!

We spent some time today out in the gardens, now that the humidity is down and it is FINALLY not raining. The weather is gorgeous– sunny, crisp air, and 70 degrees! I’m loving it!

We checked the condition of the vegetable beds. I haven’t spent nearly enough time in them this year. That, and the late frost we had, soaking constant rains, and the humid blast we had last week had been really rough on the poor plants. It was painful to wander back there and see them struggling for life.

My zucchini didn’t make it. This is the first time in all my years in New York State that we have had this happen. Zucchini is the staple of any vegetable garden, usually producing woefully excessive amounts of squash to share. This year, we probably got a dozen or so fruits out of FIVE plants. Usually, I’d probably be getting 5 times that.

The root vegetables turned out very well, as they usually do. I harvested half my potato patch today! And we pulled out a few Monster Turnips. Look at these things! What on earth am I going to do with them?! And there are about 15 more in the garden, still!

Speaking of giants, we spotted this humongous fly on the fence. NEVER seen one so large! Yuck!

Best of all, there’s my grape vine. My beautiful, beloved grapes! *sigh*

From what I hear, many gardens across the U.S. have not fared too well. My tomatoes did poorly, but I don’t eat tomatoes much, so I didn’t care. I’m very sorry to see my zucchini die, though. How did your garden do?

Unbelievable.

ORISKANY, N.Y. (WKTV) – There’s a disease that’s hitting tomato plants across the northeast and it may have found its way to your own garden here in Central New York.

Officials out in Oriskany from the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oneida County say the big box retail stores in our area : Walmart, K-Mart, Home Depot and Lowes all had the same supplier of tomato plants, a company from the south. That company had plants tainted with the disease called “late blight,” a fast spreading disease that will kill your plant and any plants near it.

Will someone please tell me why ALL the major Big Box stores get their tomato plants from the SAME SUPPLIER for the entire Northeast?! Stupid! Sheesh, now even our plant suppliers are consolidated! Ugh!!

My tomatoes had vicious blight last year– I am sure they had the blight before I bought them, because as soon as I got them into the ground, they turned brown and died. (I’d bought them from WalMart. I’ll never do that again. I think WalMart is getting too big for its britches, selling everything under the sun. Next thing you know, they’ll be doing piano lessons). So this year, I got the tomatoes from Lowes. I don’t know why I even buy the plants- tomatoes grow so easily from seed. I’d composted some tomatoes in my large compost pile a year or two ago, and added the compost to my garden. I guess the seeds didn’t compost, because that year I had dozens of little tomato plants growing in the garden beds everywhere. From now on, I’m just going to grow from seed.

If you have bought tomato plants from these stores, Miller says “really keep an eye on them and look for any kind of pale greening, wet soaked areas on the leaf tips and especially if they have started to turn brown and dispose of them as we have talked about.” Miller says the proper method is to put the diseased plant in a dark colored plastic bag, put that plastic bag in another dark plastic bag and leave that in the sun in order to kill the spores. Once that is done, you are ok to put that with your other yard waster to be taken away.

If you want more information, check out the Cornell Cooperative Extension site.