Dealing with problems in the garden

Welcome, Michelle and remeyers - and thanks for following the blog!

Any gardener will have more than their share of gardening problems to deal with, at least that's my experience. Leaving it be won't help matters, and i'm always proactive when faced with a bad situation. Take for instance, the fireblight on the pear tree below. Last week I just removed the infected foliage to keep from losing a couple of fruit that had set already. But, a week later came new foliage that had wilted on the limb - so I said to heck with it. Aggressive pruning was in order, and I removed almost all of the limb in question. Fireblight isn't something to mess around with.....

Photo below - One of the honeydew melon plants died - which I attribute to the "pooling" effect that was experienced once the soil in the swc had settled. The reason I say this, is because the plant was doing just fine until it came a monsoon about a week ago, and the leaves turned yellow afterward. So, I did what should've been done in the first place - which is adding enough soil to the container so that any rainfall would run off as it fell, instead of allowing it to experience a bathtub effect. It's a good thing I had more seeds, and also plenty of time left in the planting season. I was glad to get this corrected, because it's gonna rain at least 4 days in a row starting this weekend. This is bad for the garden, but great for the rain barrels....

On a brighter note, the Cherokee Purple tomatoes are doing well. The ones in the front are a little bit ahead of the ones in the back, but only because they were bigger when transplanted. My biggest challenge is keeping Jude from walking into the bed from the left side - especially since the top of the box is at ground level and no protective fencing is in place. These plants receive alot of attention, because afterall - they're Cherokee Purple! I'm sure you understand....

In other news, I went ahead and purchased a 9-pack of beauregard sweet potato plants the other day from Lowes, and will try to get them planted into three of the containers that have onions in them now. The lone self-grown slip has been transplanted into the 4th container, and will be split up as it gets bigger. At least that's the plan.....
These containers will be amended with any finished compost that can be obtained from the bins, and i'll definitely be able to get enough after some strenuous sifting takes place. Speaking of sifting....i'll have to construct something that'll do it for me this fall, because sifting takes alot of time and energy to do. Several ideas have already popped into my head, but will be thought over for months - as all projects usually do. A successful design always comes from lots of thought. That's why i'm always thinking about something......

Also, the rain barrel project is complete, and and i'll blog about it in a couple of days. Because of all the rainfall expected over the weekend, i'm hoping they'll be completely filled up. That would be nice!

Take care, and happy gardening!

EG