The wilt watch is not going well. TPP started with 6 tomato plants, caged, in a row, and now three have been removed, and two of the remaining plants are wilting. So after a good start, the tomato part of the garden is almost back to square one. A few leftover plants at a local nursery have been potted using a potting mix, but you don't replace 5 foot tall plants with nearly full-sized fruits in just a week or two. So you just try to salvage something. Now the watch turns to peppers growing about 4 feet away from the tomatoes. This is the problem of small gardens, especially when you routinely cheat on plant spacing. A nice heavy rainfall could saturate the soil and facilitate movement of the wilt to the peppers. If the wilt gets there, then the dominos will continue to fall, sadly. Next year will require some major shifting of our gardening efforts to avoid growing nightshades in this general area. This type of event is one of the major challenges of small gardens, and especially so since the last two years have not been good gardening years and while late, this year's garden was growing pretty well. To add to the gardening woes, the 1st Japanese beetles have been spotted, a relatively new pest in these parts. However their appearance is late, so maybe they didn't do so well and this years hatch will be small; so far cicadas are nearly a no show as well, not that they are a garden problem, but another insect that pupates under ground where the drought conditions of last summer and fall may have been difficult.![]()
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