we had a wonderful vacation at Cape Cod. For a week we slept in,
took naps, went to bed early, slept some more. We read books and swam in
the waves of the ocean, watched seals and had a wonderful time with Kira.
She really enjoyed having Steve and me all the time living into the day.
On Friday we got rained out and packed up all the wet sleeping bags, tent and
stuff and drove to Boston and visited Seba for a day. I still get worked
up a bit driving in Boston. I did not know I could sleep that much.
My batteries are charged and this past week in the gardens was busy but
relaxed. Zach, Phil, Ian, Sal and Miguel did a wonderful job keeping you all
fed.
The morning we had left, the three guinea pigs had left their pasture
through a hole under the gate and went missing for 8 days. When we got back we
found them in the tall grass near the fence. It seemed like they went on
vacation too.
The gardens are busy. It is cool this morning and I
am procrastinating to go out in the wet fields. We found that the cabbage
got hit with swede midge. Normally they don't like cabbage, but since all
the broccoli and kale was covered with the new netting, they got desperate and
went for the cabbage. We just harvested a few beautiful heads of broccoli
and there should be more coming on soon for you, as they recover from the
earlier slug hammering.
The onions and leeks have gotten leek moth, a moth that lays its eggs into the inner leaf and causes mining windows in the leafs and they will go into the bulb and it that will not store. I think
we got the garlic out in time not to be fresh green and appetizing to them and
we are scouting onions and leeks and eat any sick ones right away. It is
a bummer though. We will need to cover onions, leeks and garlic with a
netting to have any in the future. I had bought a second net in the
spring for that, but we would not be able to grow the amounts we have now,
plus we have to cover the cabbage too.
Two days ago we saw late blight in the tomatoes and with the rain it will spread fast. We just got the first few tomatoes and I am afraid there will not be many more to come.
Hopefully potatoes will make some crop before they get hit.
I know this is not a very up cheering newsletter. On the good side parsnips and
greens are doing good and we looked at a cow to buy and that is so very
exciting.
So long for now, I have to go and harvest for the day.
Dulli