Garden Update

I've blogged before about my wonderful garden.  This is the first true veggie garden I've had in years.  (Uh, about 25 years.)  I planted my little plants and lovingly nurtured them. (This picture was taken in June, before everything took off!) 

Of course the first assault on the garden was the hail storm.  For about 15 minutes my little garden was pelted first with huge raindrops, and then huge hailstones.  I feared my little heirloom seedlings were doomed--likewise the beans.  (Those are bean leaves to the left.)  The broccoli and Brussels sprouts had huge holes in the leaves, but they, too, survived.

Then just as the Brussels sprouts were starting to form, we had a visit from Mr. Groundhog.  Mr. Groundhog roared through my little garden like an angry tornado, eating the broccoli and every leaf he could reach on the sprouts. (That poor first plant reminds me of a very skinny person with a big mop of hair.)

Since the beginning of the summer, I'd heard horror stories about the tomato blight, which is actually a mutation of the potato blight that devastated Ireland in 1844.  Word on the street was that the blight was attacking plants from big-box stores.  Whew!  I bought my plants from a small farm market, and grew my heirloom tomatoes from seeds.  I was safe.

NOT!

Last week I noticed the leaves on the tomato plants were turning brown.  Since then, some of the tomatoes have spots and some are just falling off the plants.  Boo hoo hoo!  All my hard work--and the blight still got my darlings.  Still, we are eating the tomatoes (and cutting off the bad bits) and they are soooooo much better that those hothouse ones at the grocery store.  And hopefully, I'll have at least a couple of heirloom tomatoes, too.

Gardening can be heartbreaking.  But I'm already making plans for next year's garden.

The beginning of the end?

I’m convinced this summer was cursed—at least as far as yard sales goes. But this weekend I did better than I have in almost a month. I scored at the very first sale of the day with two cute little picture frames I have a special use for. Also, I got a CD of the best of Gershwin for a mere 50 cents. (Have been wanting to hear Rhapsody in Blue after rereading Jeanne Ray’s wonderful novel EAT CAKE. That tune has a special place in the book and it just seemed fitting to get the CD.)

But the prize was the hand-painted salt and pepper shakers. I thought they were pretty and at only a dollar, a bargain, too.

We left our comfort zone and traveled a good part across the state because we wanted to go to lunch in one of our favorite Irish pubs (Coleman’s in Syracuse. I had the chicken pub pie. De-lish!). There seemed to be a lot more sales in Syracuse than in my area, so I went to as many as I could. Of course, by the time we got there, most of the sales had been picked over. But I still got some Made In England cork coasters (from Harrod’s no less) with views of London.

I also got a very cute butterfly hairclip for the vast fortune of ten cents, and this lovely little rose bowl—which cost only a quarter, so I can’t say that the prices weren’t right.

But all and all it was yet another disappointing “junking” weekend. Labor Day often means the beginning of the end of yard sale season in this part of the country. 

Bummer.