Late Blight?

I'm afraid my fears have become reality...I have late blight!  Or rather, my potatoes and tomatoes do.

Affected potato leaves.

I'm starting to wonder if the tomatoes actually have late blight though, or if it is one of the wilts.  Apparently late blight usually affects the fruits too, and luckily mine still look great.  I even got my first (almost) red tomato today!

Yellowing and wilted leaves on the "iron lady" tomato.

Close-up of the leaves.

And You Thought Only Spiders Had Cobwebs!

I will admit that I'm weird, I find it strangely relaxing to brush a llama.

At least when that llama is well-behaved!

The NY State Fair is coming up in 2 short weeks, so during my recent time off I decided I should work on grooming the animals that I'm taking to show.

Lucky for me 2 of them are body shorn!

Since Ralph is only going to show in performance, he doesn't need any grooming at all.  I'll wash him right before the show just like the others, but only because I don't like petting him when he's all dusty!

Ralph after being shorn.  Not much left to brush!

T is also body shorn, but he has a hideous-looking tail!  I never got around to picking the burrs out of it in the spring, so it is a mess.  So on Tuesday I took the scissors to it (to cut out some big mats and burrs), and today I brushed out the rest.  He looks a little silly with a very poofy tail, but I think he'll look fine for the show.  He is showing in performance, halter, and showmanship, so he has to look his best!

T and his terrible haircut!

Kara is the big challenge.  Luckily she isn't terribly dirty, and being fairly young her neck and leg fiber hasn't matted too badly yet, but I was really determined to have her spotless and mat-free by the show.  I've now succumbed to accepting that she won't be completely mat-free, but I'm hoping to get most of the cobwebs out of her fleece.  My ulterior motive for doing this is that I hope having less cobwebs will help her cool off, since her skin should be able to breathe more.

Beautiful Kara.

For the past week or so, Kara and I have spent a lot of quality time in the barn...brushing and being brushed!  Luckily she is a sweetheart and accepts it very well!  So far I've done the top of her neck, her tail, and both back legs.  Today I started on a front leg.  Hopefully I'll be able to get done before I have to go back to work next week!

Kara's neck fiber before brushing.

The same spot after brushing.  (I love that she has her dad's curls!)

The lower part of Kara's neck...still needs a lot of work!

Rhinebeck Progress

Well I'm slowly but surely making progress on my Rhinebeck projects!

First up is a skein of Ashland Bay BFL wool.  I think it was 4 oz, spun and double plied.  It definitely isn't perfect, so it will be interesting to see how it does.  This will go in the 2-ply natural colored wool category.

The single plies on the outside.

Plied yarn.

Second is a cable lace cowl, knit out of a handspun skein of 50:50 camel:silk.  I'm not quite done, on row 52 of 62.  It looks pretty good, even though the yarn is fairly uneven.  I think it will look a lot better once it is blocked.

Not the best picture, but this is the cowl so far.

The crazy 2-page chart!

No Tomatoes...

Yes, we have no tomatoes, we have no (ripe) tomatoes today...

Yes, we have no tomatoes, tomatoes in Norwich, NY...

(bonus points if you get the reference!)

I would give anything for my tomatoes to ripen already!  I've picked 4 ripe heirlooms (yellow perfection), and a handful of ripe cherries, but that's it!  The rest of the tomatoes have tons of green fruit, but nothing is ripening!  I gave the tomatoes a bit of fertilizer this week, and it is a bit warmer, so hopefully that will help!

Finishing the Fence!!

Well it isn't completely done, but the fence is 99% finished!

Yesterday we finished the last remaining side of the perimeter fence.

Today I worked on the rest of the aisle fence.

We also hung the gate yesterday, but I still need to wire-tie some chicken wire to the gate.

I got half of the aisle fence attached to the posts, and will do the rest tomorrow.

We also worked on evicting our groundhog resident from the shed.

And we finished the shed pen and make-shift gate.

There is still another couple hours worth of work to do tomorrow morning, but the llamas are going to christen their new pasture by the afternoon!  Can't wait!

Ongoing Issues

I never realized there were so many things that could go wrong with a garden!

The first problem, which I've talked about before, has been cucumber beetles and squash bugs.  At first I was just smushing the eggs whenever I found them, but they were still getting out of control.

Cucumber beetle eggs and a mature squash beetle.

Phase 2 of the control measures was sticky traps and neem oil.  They sell yellow sticky traps specifically for cucumber beetles, but you can only order them online and they're about $20 for 2!  I found some yellow sticky fly traps at Tractor Supply Company in town, and decided to try those.  They were $7 for 2!  Unfortunately I caught a lot more than just cucumber beetles, but they do seem to have worked.  I also applied neem oil to the squash, pumpkin, and cucumber plants for a few weeks.  It can kill pollinators though, so I've decided to quit applying it.  I've been finding a lot less egg clusters, so hopefully I made a dent in the population.

My sticky trap.

For some reason, the cucumber beetles don't seem to be laying eggs on the cucumbers.  It is weird, but I'm okay with it!

Good-looking cucumbers!

The squash plants had quit producing fruits, I think it may have been because of the heat.  Luckily it has cooled down, and I've seen a couple of baby squash on the plants.

Crowded squash.

The newest problem is the tomatoes!  Several of the plants were starting to yellow at the bottom, which can be a sign of several different diseases (mostly blights and wilts) as well as many nutrient deficiencies.  I decided to be safe and remove all of the yellow branches, and put them in the trash (not the compost!).  I'm also going to give them several treatments of compost tea and maybe some other fertilizers, just in case it is a deficiency.

Yellowing on the tomato plants.

Close-up of the yellowing leaves.

Pruned plant.

Hanging Fence!!

We're finally hanging fence!

I set up the wires for the braces a few days ago (well, all but one), so today we set out to start hanging the fence.

First we had to build our fence stretcher.  It is 2 pieces of 2x4, cut to 4.5'.  We drilled 2 holes and added 2 bolts.  The fence gets sandwiched between the pieces of wood, and the nuts on the bolts tightened as much as possible.

Next we had to strip the vertical wires from the end of the fence roll, and tie the end of the fence around the gate post.  Just stripping those wires took an hour!

Then we unrolled the fence along the fence row, and attached the stretcher.  We wrapped a chain around the top and bottom of the stretcher, and attached a come-along between the chain and the tractor.  We had a lot of extra slack in the fence, so we backed the tractor up before tightening with the come-along.

Once the fence was tight enough, we stapled it at the corner.  Tomorrow we'll stretch the next length of fence (and splice the next roll in between).

We didn't get much done in all reality, but hopefully it will go faster in the future!