I’m trying not to see this as a fail, but sometimes I can’t help to feel that way at certain times during the summer growing months in the garden. This is the time when everything that I’ve grown from seed, starts to or has been producing so much food.
Not here in this desert that I call my backyard. No matter what I’ve done to keep the plants happy and thriving, I still don’t know it all and I may be missing some things to help that I don’t know about. I’m doing my best really. From cutting down all of the diseased leaves on the plants to spraying the leaves with organic bug spray and disposing of the decaying leaves quickly-well as quickly as I can, I’m a stay at home homeschooling momma of three remember. Sometimes I’m stopped right in the midst of clearing out the dead leaves to stop a dispute over who’s paper airplane looks better or so and so hit me, that I can’t get to everything right away.
The squash has been harvested and tasted, but not by me and my family, but from the squirrel or squirrels that like to frequent my backyard. I come to check on things every morning and to my surprise -NOT- the zucchini that was there yesterday isn’t there anymore and the one next to it has bite marks in it. I hope it was delicious little guys or girls. Never again will I plant food near the fence.
Tiny, tiny little bugs that just suck the life out of your garden babies. Hoping and praying that you start to see beneficial bugs flying around the yard or just a hope that your eyes catch a glimpse of the tiny little magnificent ladybug who can eat it’s way through a ton of Aphids. It’s like an all you can eat buffet for them. They weren’t as bad at first and now that the weather has gotten warm they’ve multiplied. I guess I need more ladybugs and other plants to deter the Aphids from eating my garden babies.
Powdery mildew…. Powdery what?!? Yeah powdery mildew is another one of those things that attacks your garden babies as well. It’s white dots that cover your leaves and if not treated or taken care of it can spread fast. It looks as if someone came to your yard and poured baby powder all over the leaves of certain veggies. No matter how hard you try to not get the leave wet when you water the garden, you still have the morning dew that brings in the extra moisture and that can cause powdery mildew. I’ve heard that a simple mixture of milk and water can help to keep the disease away, but I have not tried that one yet. I try my hardest to simply cut the leaves that have been plagued with this issue.
I’m going to be super vigilant with this next growing season that we are about to go into. At least I hope to be super vigilant about it, but hopefully with the cooler season upon us it shouldn’t be that bad…. right? We shall see, we shall see.
The Petersen homestead 