The tomatoes and the potatoes are dying. Despite my and my father’s expert opinions that wet weather was just damaging the plants (and let me point out that this is a true statement, and that the wet weather is the catalyst for the blight), it is indeed the dreaded B-L-I-G-H-T. First a few lower leaves turn yellow with brown spots. So I cut them off and burn them and wait.
Then entire branches are dead, brown and dried as if someone held a magnifying glass over the top of it and burned them almost to dust. Flowers and even green tomatoes are hanging on the top branches, desperately trying to soak in as much sun as possible. Now it is a race: propagation vs. perish.
The potato plants start to yellow. This blight is the same blight that caused The Great Potato Famine once upon a farming time in Ireland. The cycle begins on a new crop and a new set of dreams.
My dad went into a depression for days when the plants began to fall apart. He wouldn’t talk to anyone about the garden and I was afraid to ask. Although we found out that the fungicides were not necessarily harmful to the honeybees, we agreed to not use it and basically do nothing. There was nothing we could do at that point, except spend more money, wait and hope.
So you’re probably wondering why I’m posting pictures of my kids at a fair with their aunt and uncle. Well, 1. because it is way more fun to look at then crusty dried up plants. and 2. because really, this is what matters. Yes, it is heartbreaking to plan and spend and sweat and dig and come up with plants that you have to watch get sick before they bloom and die. But this is life. Farming is a microcosm of our existence. You anticipate and plan, but ultimately none of us knows what will happen, whether you have so many tomatoes that you are hiding them in your friend’s cars or that constant rain brings down a fungus that leaves unripened fruit clutching to dead vines. We just don’t know. But we can learn from it. And losing my entire crop of tomatoes and potatoes is not the defining characteristic of my being a farmer. I have a TON of cucumbers that need pickling. We’ve eaten more swiss chard than my kid’s are happy about and every day I yell at myself that I need to harvest and dry the 15 different kinds of herbs that are flourishing.
“Live in the moment,” that is what these pictures say to me. Sure we’ll have to buy sauce at the store this winter, but maybe we’ll try more German food to go with our abundance of pickles. And in the end, our kids are full of Ferris wheel rides and snow cones and we’ve discovered a new type of regional pickle recipe.
Ok, enough life lessons… time for the update:
The Koi pond has been rebuilt into a newer, less ghetto version, complete with REAL pond liner (ooooh!) and pressure treated lumber (aaaaaah!). It looks a lot nicer, however the weight of the water has blown out one side and it is losing water. AGAIN! Just 5 minutes ago Brian was outside redirecting the rain gutters in anticipation of today’s rain to fill it back up. Danger Will Robinson! But, this is his gig, so I just sit here typing quietly and make sure that the camera is handy.
While there are some issues in the garden, all of the crops are not in jeopardy. We are eating delicious zucchini, yellow squash, basil, cucumbers (although only the pickling kind, the regular variety can’t seem to pull off a life-sized cuke) and beans, beans, beans. The county fair that I had dedicated so much time and blog space about last year is not even on the roster this year. We just had nothing we could enter. I even have a friend that signed up to enter, but when the time came to pick the prize winners, there were no vegetables that were even close to ripe or had already died from disease. It is just that bad up here.
But the true farming fever has not been about the veggies or the bees (which are doing well, by the way, despite the lack of sun… but not a lot of honey) or the chickens… but about flowers. My mom has not been mentioned a ton on the blog, not because she isn’t important to The Farm, but because she concentrates on perennials and flowers, not veggies. This year the Farmer of the Year award goes to her. My baby sister Krista (aka. Fresh) is getting married in 2 weeks (8/22). No, LESS THAN 2 WEEKS! She has decided that she wants what she is lovingly calling her Shabby Chic Wedding. This handmade wedding is at my grandmother’s house and has required an extensive amount of landscaping, gardening and even complete overhaul of some parts of the buildings. My mother has been busting her lovely lady hump for months now putting together entire new gardens of flowers. Between her and her friend Chris, they have encyclopedia-like knowledge of plants and can grow and organize based on color. I, on the other hand, usually find something pretty and hope it lasts longer than a month. What they have put together is absolutely breathtaking… especially if you could have seen what it was beforehand. (I do have to give credit to their hired help: my brother, my sister, my father and various others that have been roped into this. Apparently throwing a wedding ALSO takes a village.) In addition to the gardening, my mother has been feverishly purchasing furniture from garage sales, estate sales and Craigslist. She is now frantically painting everything in hopes that she can turn other people’s trash into my sister’s matrimonial vision. And the true genius of it all? The weekend following the wedding (8/29) ALL OF IT will be for sale at The After Wedding Bazaar Yard Sale! Hey! I have an idea! I’ll post pictures of it all, you pick out your favorites and come buy them! You can have your very own Accidental Farm paraphernalia! Ok, so it wouldn’t actually be from The Accidental Farm, but I’ll throw in a sprig of parsley and some eggs if that will make you happy.
Now remember, there’s no sense in getting your panties in a twist about dying tomatoes, missed county fairs and flooded weddings. We never know what is coming down the road, it could be good or bad. The important thing is that we just keep walking.
(Look at philosophical me! Must be the iced coffee.)
