And so it Begins.

Yesterday we took the kids to Lake Ridge Resort to enjoy the last day of summer vacation.  We returned home to find that the construction has started!  It's a week ahead of schedule, quite a surprise! Exciting but a little bittersweet as well. 

Garden Update- August 5

My garden is really taking off right now. Typically my garden peaks around the second week of July, but this most of it wasn't even planted up the middle of June. So everything is a bit behind.  There have been a lot of challenges with all the rain we had this summer.  The wet condition caused a lot of diseases, and more insect pest than usual. i really can't complain though, despite the challenges we are enjoying a wonderful harvest.

i don't really follow the rules when it comes to gardening. i tend to ignore planting times, i over plant my beds, and continue to plant stuff up until it frosts.  My yellow wax beans have been producing well, but the mexican bean beetles have really tore them up.  So i planted new beans in between the rows, and a soon as they beginning filling in i will pull the old beans. i tend to replant beans and summer squash every three weeks for a continuous harvest.

i new my tomatoes were struggling, and the minute i realized weather conditions were favoring blight, i planted cucumber and beans in with the tomatoes. It has worked out well, as one by one i have to remove tomato plants, then beans and squash are filling in so despite having to pull all the tomatoes, there will not be an empty spot. In the early spring i plant cucumbers in with my sugar peas, so as the peas begin to die back the cucs are starting to climb.  i tend to have a constant rotation of fresh veggie this ay, and am able to grow a lot more in smaller spaces.

The late blight that hit my tomatoes also hit my potatoes.. Most years my potatoes would already be done by now, and by the time the late blight hit they would have already died back.  They were planted late though, and so the blight attacked the foliage.  i've been out there the last couple days trying to dig my potatoes. i have to get them out of the ground as soon as possible, or the will rot in the ground if the blight gets to the tubers. So i have a lot of small potatoes this year. i am not sure if they will store well this winter, as this point i have no where to put them any way.  So far it doesn't appear that the blight has reached any of the tubers, so i think they'll be okay. i planted red, white and purple just for fun.  i really enjoy lots of color in the garden.

i planted lots of purple again this year. The Cherokee purple tomatoes are planted in a different garden, and so far they have no sign of blight. They are the only tomatoes i've been able to harvest this year. i have Amish paste and a few other varieties in that garden, so i'm really hoping the blight will somehow miss that bed and i'll get to harvest some of them.  

The purple pole beans are a favorite, i plant them every year and they will continue to produce up until the frost. i also planted cosmic carrots again. They are a reddish purple on the outside and a yellow orange on the inside. i'd like to find some that are purple all the way through.  i planted purple sprouting broccoli this spring, the plants look great, but so far it hasn't sprouted at all. 

i have a bunch of cucumbers and melons planted this year too. They are growing and flowering well but have not shown any signs that they are going to fruit. The strangely cool temperatures seem to really be affecting pollination.  We still have enough summer that i should get to harvest some if it would just warm up a bit. 

i picked up quite a few new heirloom veggie seeds from BBB seeds when they were having a half off sale last week. So i am working on pulling all my spring cold crops and planting my late summer/ fall garden. i'm putting in three different kinds of beets, kale, chard, broccoli and lots of lettuces. i really can't believe i am even saying 'late summer/fall'.  Having only been here for two months, i feel like summer is really just starting. School is starting in a  week, and i am so not ready for that.  So much change and it doesn't feel like it will slow down any time soon.

We are signing papers tonight and will soon begin the rebuilding of our home. 

It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home.  ~Author Unknown

Old Silver Apiary Feature and Giveaway! CLOSED

 
Old Silver Apiary is a small family run apiary located on Cape Cod. They have created a simple yet luxurious line of products using local beeswax,  local honey, local hand harvested herbs, organic oils, organic shea butter and scented only with essential oils. 

 Old Silver Apiary is run by Tara Sullivan Garvin and her family.  i've known  Tara for many years, and am super excited to feature her on my blog again.  A couple years ago, i featured some of her photography. 

When Tara first started learning about standard practices in conventional beekeeping  she was stunned. The "mystery" of why our bees are disappearing didn't seem to be much of a mystery at all. 2012 was the worst year for honey bees yet in the US, but she strongly believes we can turn it around and she wanted her family to have a small part in that. 

The bees of Old Silver Apiary live on an 8 acre organic farm.  At Old Silver Apiary, they only work with local bees to try to strengthen the bee population as a whole.  They practicing a biodynamic approach to disease and mite treatment, raise local queens and are experimenting with different types of hives. This winters goal is to build several top bar hives.

They get many gifts from the bees, so they decided to use them to help fund their expanding apiary. Using their own (or in a pinch local) beeswax, honey, organic oils, local herbs and butters they have created a line that they are truly proud of. They hope you'll love it as much as they do. 

Old Silver Apiary offers lip balms, salves, body butters, bathing salts and gift sets. They are all handmade in small batches.  Their products are always packaged in reusable tins or mason jars and shipped using upcycled packaging or Caremail recycled packaging.

Buy it!

 Like what you see? Want to try it out for yourself? Head over to the Old Silver Apiary Etsy shop where you can purchase some of her wonderful products!

Win it!!

Tara has generously offered a Farmer's Salve and a coconut Lime Lip balm to one lucky reader! To enter, please use the rafflecopter form below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tomato problems and a small harvest.

Last year my garden was hit with late blight. It was pretty devastating at the time. i have always grown a ton of tomatoes, then turned them into sauce, froze or canned them. i was pretty proud of the fact that i had gone several years without having to buy pasta sauce or canned tomatoes. Last year, at this same time i had over 40 heirloom plants that were destroyed by blight in a little over 1 weeks time.

 Looking back i realize that the loss of all those tomatoes was only the beginning of a cycle of loss that would continue until we had lost most everything.   

Since our house burned in Jan. my main goal has been to return home and plant my garden. It was something i needed to do, to stay sane and to not lose myself completely in all the chaos we were dealing with. This is my therapy, it is healing and one of the few things that makes me feel 'okay' again. So getting back to my garden became my focus, more important even than rebuilding the house.

Since we were in the rental house i had no where to start seeds inside, so i purchased a flat of tomato plants from a farm market in NC.  Before i had even gotten the tomatoes into the ground one of the plants died.  i didn't really think much of it, sometimes you get a weak plant that for what ever reason doesn't make it.  i threw out the dead plant and went ahead and planted to rest of the tomatoes. One, by one the plants began to shrivel and die.  i was not at all concerned that it was late blight again. They did not have the leaf spots that you see with blight.  From my research last year, i read that late blight does not over winter in the soil and just because you have it one year doesn't mean you'll get it again. It has more to do with weather conditions. It only appears during wet cool summers, which are not typical for this area. 

So i had no idea why my plants were dying.  We were getting a ton of rain at this point, so i thought perhaps they were getting waterlogged. Often times irregular watering can mimic other plant diseases.   i examined the plants, and found that they all had strange brown lesions on the stems, and the leaves were turning brown just along the edges and then eventually wilting and dying completely. i cut the stems of a few plants and found the tissue inside streaked with brown. After a bit of internet research i came to the conclusion they were either infected with bacterial canker or some type of wilt.  i pulled and destroyed about a dozen plants.

i was not about to be defeated by this so i purchased new tomato plants, and even started some from seed even though it was already the middle of June.  The rain continued, and continued and continued.

By the middle of July, i was finally starting to see tomatoes develop.  My plants were looking fantastic, but the tomatoes were coming in cat-faced and splitting.  This is most often caused by weather conditions.  So far i had been really confident that i wouldn't have late blight again, after all it doesn't overwinter in the soil and was most definitely killed off over our abnormally cold winter. i'd gone 11 years without ever getting blight, what is the chance i would get it two years in a row? 

But we were getting a ton of rain, and the temps were oddly cool for July. i was checking the blight map religiously. The weather conditions were favoring late blight and it was starting to pop up everywhere. NC, WV, NJ and Dc area. It had not yet been confirmed in VA yet and i was still feeling pretty confident that it would miss us. What are the chances i would get it two years in a row?? 

The rain stopped, the sun came out and for a moment i was beginning to feel like we were in the clear.  i looked back to my old blog post to see when it had hit last year thinking we were already way past that point.  The post was published July 30th.  i looked at my calender, it was only July 22rd.  That's went it hit me that late blight was still very much a possibility. 

It began to rain again, and the temps dropped.  i checked the blight map again, still no VA, then went out and checked my plants.

There is was. July 23th, late blight again.  Devastated? crushed? or just completely defeated. It's hard to explain the feeling. Yes, i know they are only tomatoes. i know i can by pasta sauce and canned tomatoes at the store. i know that in the grand scheme of things it's really not that big of a deal.  Yet, when you put your heart and soul into something and then watch it fall apart and die,  it takes a bit of you with it.  

On that same day a note was released by the Virginia Tech Esarec Plant Pathology FB page that Late blight had been officially confirmed in Floyd County and was widespread in the area.

Eight more plants have been pulled and bagged.  i've been pulling the plants immediately at the first sign of blight, unlike last year where i thought maybe i could somehow save them.  i've started spraying copper on all the other tomatoes plants.

The tomatoes in my main garden all look like this.  So far however, it is only the tomatoes in the main garden. i have tomatoes in two other beds that are not yet infected. i'm not optimistic that they will remain that way, but i am spraying them with copper and i hoping.  After losing all my tomatoes last year, i told my husband that i would be happy with one perfectly ripe on the vine Cherokee purple tomato.  

The rain, which has caused so many issues with my tomatoes plants, has caused the rest of my garden to explode with abundance. i am trying to let go of the tomato loss and focus on everything that is doing well. i've been harvesting lots of beans and zucchini. i won't be doing any vegetable canning this year because we are in the RV, but i have been able to freeze quite a bit. We have a deep freezer set up at Kenan's shop and i am slowly getting it filled up with homegrown organic goodness.  i only have a few chickens left, but they are starting to lay again too. i'm only getting a couple eggs a week, but it is something.

 My flowers also seem to be loving the rain, and although the beds are neglected and overgrown with weeds, the flowers look prettier than they ever have before. The  flowers have brought the butterflies and hummingbirds in abundance. So on the days when it is not raining, i sit outside and just enjoy being right here, right now. 

i did get my one perfect ripe on the vine Cherokee purple tomato, in fact i have picked 6 so far and there are a few others on the plant that are very close to being ripe.  i will not get the bushels of tomatoes i was hoping for, but i will get a few and right now that is enough.

  

Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.  ~Lao Tzu

Summer Travels- The Cascades

The Cascades in Pembroke VA is one of our favorite hiking places. It's a little over an hours drive away, but we try to visit it at least once a year. My favorite time to come is in the early spring when all the first wildflowers are blooming.  The area is covered in trillium, wood violets columbine, anemones, jack in the pulpit, blue cohosh etc.  It is still a beautiful walk other times of year, but the spring is definitely my favorite.

This year we visited in the middle of summer, so most of the windflowers were not blooming. We've had so much rain this year, that the area was damper than usual and everything was lush and green.

The hike follows this beautiful river through a winding rocky path.  The hike can be a little strenuous, but the 70 foot waterfall at the end makes it all worthwhile. The cascades is considered one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Virginia, and of all the waterfalls we have visited it is by far my favorite.  i enjoy the actual hike as much as i enjoy the falls.

Although there were very few wildflowers, we did get to see a few butterflies fluttering about.  This one is a called a Red spotted purple, even though it looks black and blue.  They are usually spotted sucking the minerals out of the soil near the edges of the creek.  

Last year was the first time i've ever come across a purple flowering raspberry Rubus Odoratus. i had spotted it on our way back from hiking at panther creek. It was actually covered in fruit, otherwise i would have dismissed it as a type of wild rose. 

Although we visit the Cascades every year, i had no idea these were all over this area. We typically come in the spring, so the raspberry isn't flowering. The leaves to this plant don't look like a typical raspberry, so i've never paid it any attention before.  i was pretty excited to find them here, they are such a pretty raspberry! They are also sometimes called thimble berry and Virginia raspberry. i'm hoping to come across these again in the wild (not a state park :) )so i can dig up a runner and get some established on our land. i just love them!

Although the hike is several miles and strenuous in places, the kids love to come here and have no problems hiking the entire distance.  The scenery is completely magical, and there is amazing energy everywhere. 

The waterfall at the end of the hike is breathtaking. Kenan always takes the kids out to the falls. You can follow the rocks across and walk right up to it. The rocks are really slippery though, and it's hard not to fall. So i prefer to stay. :)   i'm not sure how i managed to get this picture of them without anyone else in it. The day we were here there were a ton of people at the falls. There were people all over the rocks, walking up to the falls and several were even in the water swimming. We always let the kids wade in the shallow areas, but we've never swam here, although many people do. 

The falls always leave us feeling energized, and the walk back seems really easy. Last year we continued up the trail to see the other falls farther up, but this year we were there a bit later and decided to just head home. Just as we got back to our car the rain poured down and  it began to storm.  Seemed like the perfect ending to such an amazing hike.

We left feeling energized and recharged.