Part Two: Surgery

If Saturday night was a murderous rampage, Sunday night was surgery night. I'll get into that in a minute. But now for something completely different:You never know what you'll find when collecting things from your garden for your dinner salad.

Now onto the surgery...I spent my evening in the pumpkin patch. I went out armed with knife and a bottle of organic mildew cure for the powdery mildew. I decided to cut out the worst leaves/vines, to douse what was left with mildew cure, and hopefully revive these sick plants. I started hacking away at sick leaves and throwing them into a pile outside the garden. I discovered that most of the sick leaves had both powdery mildew AND the frass that indicates squash vine borer. My theory is that the squash vine borers drilled into the vines making them more susceptible to diseases like powdery mildew. When I was finished hacking away, I had packed a 30 gallon trash bag with leaves and vines. The pumpkin patch is probably half as dense as it was before. With the worst of the plants gone, I went around and covered everything that was left with the mildew cure. My hopes were lifted by new green (healthy) looking growth that I discovered when I peeled away the bad.

One thing about clearing away all those large leaves - it is easy to see that there are lots of weeds that have moved in. In fact, I realize they may have been contributing to the problem. So this morning before the heat sets in for the day, I am outside pulling weeds from the pumpkin patch. I've already done one section and am taking a coffee break to update the blog before I go back out again. I was excited to have to share my area with the bees who were buzzing around because there are several new blossoms opened this morning! What a terrific sign! I hope I've been able to nurse the plants back to health.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 91 F
Low temp: 73 F
Lots of sun and hot