The 2010 Harvest is Underway

It's cooler than normal for June this year. Harvest is well underway, and will accelerate in the next few weeks. We've had tomatoes, turnips and beans. We've had our first stone fruits. And we're getting lots of squash. Below is a photo of some of our early harvest, along with my current favorite hoe, a little triangular one. I also loved my Dad's little crescent-shaped scuffle-hoe, but I've never seen one like it since.

Pests and Diseases

 We seem to have Tobacco Mosaic Virus in the yard, particularly in F's volunteer tomatillos.  It's spread by touch to all sorts of plants - tomato, pepper, bean, squash, cucumber, melon - just about everything we have planted.  Plus ornamental flowers and weeds related to beets (like lambs quarters) and those in the ubiquitous Amaranth family.  If plants are not infected early, it usually stunts rather than kills them.

Hope we can convince F that smoking around the plants and touching them actually does spread the disease.  Next year, we may need to think of a way to restrict his activities to his own part of the garden without breaking his heart.   Tests show that dipping one's hands in milk before handling plants can reduce the spread of the disease.  Sometimes plants are also sprayed with milk.  I have no clue why this would reduce the spread of an RNA virus.  F. doesn't believe that the disease cannot be cured with a "medicine" or that it is spread by touch.  He does believe that you can kill a horse by stepping on a scorpion, even if you're a football field away from the horse.  It's a challenge to introduce new ideas to him. 

Tobacco Mosaic can be seed-borne, which means that my plans for saving seeds and trying a few hybrids may be scaled back.  It is persistent in plant debris and soil where plant parts are not fully decomposed.

Squash Bugs have a good start now on our squash plants.  They like watermelon plants, too.