After our post lunch hike yesterday, I drove the tractor down to the garden to do some harvesting. Decided that some of the weeds hadda go, too. So, I spent about 2 1/2 hours down there. Every so often, I headed for the creek and lay in it to cool down, 4 times. Driving the tractor down, I can be naked and barefoot. Barefoot allows me to feel stuff before stepping on a fruit or plant. I often walk down barefoot, but stepping on the gravel in the tractor path up near the top of the hill can be painful. It's easier riding the tractor. Need it to haul the produce up.
Got a whole 5 gallon bucket of squash, 2 1/2 gallons of beans, a watermellon-sized squash, a watermellon,5 gallons of cantalope and a little bit of okra. Not sure what happened to that acorn squash. It looks like a pumpkin. No pumpkins around for it to cross with. Be interesting to see and to taste it.
I consider it one of the qualifications of organic gardening: doing it naked.
I do pee in it. It's good as long as you don't do it too close to a plant.
My crook neck squash got Best of Show in their category at the county fair (I guess summer squash).
A little bit of cloud made it wonderfully cool down there about 5ish today. But then it started raining more down there and some lightning. Got the okra and beans picked. Gotta go back in the morning for the cantalope, squash and possibly some more corn. Gotta pull some more squash vines that have the borer. They're about finished. Picked an acorn squash that seems to be like a pumpkin. No pumpkin in the area to cross with it. It's as big as a watermellon I picked on the same day.
Quite a big acorn squash you had!
Many a plant breeder has stumbled across some "sport" vegetable in his garden that later turned out to be a new and popular cultivar. It was the good Lord who brought it to pass, but you may very well reap the benefit.
We here in Georgia have a farmer's newspaper that provides growers to offer their harvest to the consumer. It is free to advertise there if you are in-state.
Borers are the nemesis of anyone who raises members of the squash family. How I hate them!
I have seen various remedies...
Wrapping undamaged stems in aluminum foil
You may also wish to try Bacillus thuringensis. It is an organic solution, a natural parasite of the borer grub. Not 100% control, but will help.
Powdery mildew ruins much of my squash foliage in the humid days of late summer. Perhaps your Virginia climate is less prone to it. The only organic control I know is to keep things spaced well for air to pass over your leaves, avoid nighttime watering & to clip infected leaves.
Nude gardening is just common sense. Glad you have the privacy to do it!
You and Ralph need to get with other Naturist Gardeners and create a website dedicated to it. Then you can have pictures (all natural) with all natural gardening.
Tips, forums, pictures, everything about gardening, except that it is dedicated to naturists!
