The last two weeks have been about watering and harvesting, realizing the sad state of my tomatoes, getting close to finishing my “tiny small needle” knitted t-shirt, finally getting a paddle in, and fun family times. August as it should be.
I harvested the majority of my spring planted carrots and turnips, plus I am getting a good amount of grape tomatoes, and we picked the bowl of plums you see from one of our trees. The smaller plums on top are from our other tree and I have no idea why they are so small. Every year they are the size of grape tomatoes instead of plums - I can only think I got a bad tree stock or something. It’s an 8 year old tree so it definitely can’t be blamed on age (and I fertilize and water it). I swear, sometimes this property seems cursed (if any of you remember the lush, prolific gardens I had at our previous house - including 8 year old plums that produced bucket fulls, you’ll know what I mean).
I use my collection of vintage green and cream enamel bowls to hold seasonal produce on our island. Not only do I love the coordinating look, I like that my collection doesn’t just collect dust. And I can wash and process the produce right from the bowls.
The other thing I’ve used the last few years to preserve produce until I can get to it are these green produce bags. I bought them to test, not really thinking they would work that much better than regular plastic or paper, but they REALLY do. I’ve found they are great for root veggies, green beans, cucumbers and hard produce like this, helping them last a long longer in the fridge - and they are amazing for zucchini. I did a test and the zucchini in these bags lasted an entire week longer than regular plastic AND they never got slimy, just pockmarked the way it can as it ages. They are not good, however, for leafy greens - the microscopic air holes apparently are enough to cause wilting.
I bought these 4 years ago and I just wash them out, let them dry and store until I need them again. I mainly use them during the season, so they aren’t heavily used all year, but well worth the money.
This is my sad tomato situation. Big time blight on all the heirlooms. While this area of my cattle panel trellis should be completely full of lush tomato leaves and fruit, I still don’t think it gives you the best picture, so I took a closer one:
And it’s even decimated the hybrid paste tomatoes:
Not only are the leaves dying, but what fruit these poor plants have produced is small. The two varieties that have withstood it are hybrid Juliet grape tomatoes and heirloom Black Cherry. I’m not sure why the two black cherry plants have only gotten a few leaves of blight, but I’m grateful because they are one of my favorite summer flavors.
I’ve had blight before, of course, like most everyone in the PNW who grows tomatoes, but never this bad. It started right away and I did my usual thing of snipping off the leaves as soon as I saw them, fertilizing and watering. Usually this would help new growth and stop the blight from spreading fast. Not this time - every time I went out there were more leaves affected and I practically denuded the bottom of the plants. But the blight just moved up.
I’m going to make salsa with the small tomatoes and few paste tomatoes I’ve gotten and I found some frozen tomatoes from last year for tomato chutney, but I think I’m going to have to buy canning tomatoes this year to get freezer marinara and other tomato products. At least we are enjoying the fresh eating of the tomatoes we do have!
We took our grandson to the county fair and it was the first time I’d been in probably 20 years. Other than the long line to get in past all the airport-like security (including a look in my purse) and the sticker shock from the price of the rides (even the little kid rides that were less than 5 minutes), it was remarkably unchanged from my memories. Corn dogs and cotton candy, stuffed animals and toys to win, and I swear the exact same rides, lol. Let’s hope they keep them well conditioned!
I am so close to finishing the knitted t-shirt I’ve been working on this summer! This is the one that uses a size 2 needle and the yarn I chose, a bamboo, linen, and cotton blend, is kind of splitty which always adds to the time it takes me. As if the size of the needle weren’t enough, the edges are all finished in an applied i-cord which makes such a neat and tidy edge but takes forever to do. I think the bottom edge took me a full week to complete!
I need to finish the rest of the sleeve I’m working on above and then knit the i-cord around the neck and then I’m done (besides blocking). I plan to share a picture of me wearing it in the next ATF newsletter - wish me luck!
I couldn’t believe we made it to August without paddling once, so I put it on my calendar to go to a local lake one Sunday afternoon. Seems that’s the only way to make something like this happen! It was lovely - there’s just something about being out on the water.
And then, we went the next week during our lake cabin weekend with our kids:
Joy! And can I just say I love where we live? Such beautiful places to visit that aren’t overrun with people or boats.💜 We were so blessed to not have much smoke from the fires in eastern Oregon, too. It was such a great time.
