It's all a blur

I know I had a weekend. I know I did. But it all kind of…went by…in a big old blur…

We consolidated the surviving tomatoes into one smaller block of the back forty(yards). Picked another bucket of peas, two BIG heads of broccoli, two small golden beets, and the very this-time-we-mean-it last of the red onions.

Then we weeded like crazy people around the little trees. We have been sort of lazy less-than-diligent back there on the theory that weeding is a pain in the neck it wasn't that important seeing as how the trees were tall and the weeds not so tall.

But this weekend I finally admitted to myself that it is a very bad idea to allow the weeds to grow wild anywhere like that. They encourage the spread of the powdery mildew and other ickies, they attract all the wrong bugs (cutworms in particular, they love all that juicy green cover) (and aphids…grrrrrr…aphids…), and of course it looks pretty awful.

Besides…I'm thinking I could probably get a few other crops in there. Right now the trees are so small I don't even have to worry about the sun/shade thing, but going forward I could be planting shade-tolerant goodies all around their bases.

What? Why are you looking at me like that? I'm not obsessed or anything, I'm just…um…trying to utilize my scarce land-resources to the absolute best of my abilities.

Also, I found an interesting potential cure for the powdery mildew, and it's just so unlikely that I couldn't not try it: milk.

Milk. Nine cups of water to one cup milk, spray liberally on the leaves. Allegedly, it can actually cure it…most things merely slow it down a bit, but if the infection is already widespread you're pretty much doomed.

I sprayed in the morning, and by evening I noticed that it did seem to be falling off the peas! Falling off! Like a fine powder.

I will be so excited if this works.

Lillehammer Jr. is coming along splendidly. I made it through the main body and am working through the last few rounds before the neck shaping…the part where suddenly I'm consulting the pattern every row again. After all those inches of pattern repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat, it's a refreshing change.

Except for when I'm trying to juggle it all on a crowded BART train. Yeah. That part isn't so much fun.