Ups and Downs

The zucchini and chard were coming along great! The fishing line fence seemed to be working.

That is, until a few days ago when I found the zucchinis missing all their leaves, half the chard was gone, and there were hoof prints all over the new bed of kale that hasn’t even sprouted yet. Near as I can tell, they found the opening I left in the fence, and then tried to go underneath the fence on their way out, breaking lines as they went.

I’ve repaired those damaged lines, closed off the opening, and realized I don’t need a gate in this kind of fence. I can just bend over and squeeze through the lines. It’s like barbed wire without the barbs. I haven’t seen any further damage, and after just watering it a couple times, it looks like both the chard and the zucchinis are trying to come back.

I’ve been getting pretty aggressive about chasing the deer off. I, who never run, have chased them several times now, keeping pace with them for 20 or 30 yards, throwing rocks and sticks the whole time, before they slip away into the woods. I’ve never managed to hit one yet, but I think they’re getting a little less brazen. I’ve been teaching Noah to stalk them, and I’ve noticed that my two-year-old daughter Amalie has started carrying a baseball-sized rock around with her whenever we’re at Woodland. They seem to be natural hunters.

My peaches were small and ugly again this year, but I’ve been reading, and I have a better idea now what the problem is. Basically, not enough water or nitrogen. Some copper and sulfur would probably help, too, but simply watering them and giving them more compost would probably make a huge difference. I didn’t see any leaf curl this year (thank goodness!), just the little black spots on the fruit and some sappy spots on the branches, both indicators of a bacteria that attacks trees that are weakened from not having enough water or nitrogen. I learned also that the fruit is fine once you peel the skin off, so I’m making jam this year.

I’ve been up all night doing just that, figuring I’d have it ready to take to market later this morning, and then I remembered that the jars would take several hours to cool. The directions in the pectin box said to let them sit for 24 hours. Oops. (It’s been a couple years since I’ve done any canning.) I have nothing else ready to sell this week, so it looks like I’m staying home and making another batch of jam.

I was thinking of trying to vary the flavors a little. Instead of just peach, I was thinking of doing a batch of cinnamon peach and maybe a batch of vanilla-peach-hibiscus or something like that. Mayda is telling me to keep it simple and just stick to plain peach–which I will, at least for this first batch. Any opinions on how I should do the second batch? (There will only be two for now, until the peaches on the other tree ripen.)

The garlic is all sold out, but I’ve replanted that patch of ground with 25 tomato plants that seem to be doing well so far. They’re in our yard on Paul Drive, so they’re better protected, at least from the deer. We do have squirrels and a couple of groundhogs who live here, but we’ve only once seen deer cross the road and leap the fence to come into the garden at night. I think that was last year, and I was growing romaine lettuce at the time.

The tomatoes at Woodland that were nibbled by deer are also recovering. Two plants are big and lush, and I have several medium-sized green tomatoes on them. The bell peppers are struggling to come back, but I don’t have much hope of them being productive.

At any rate, there should be lots of peach jam by next weekend. I’m expecting this batch to make about 20-22 jars, and I still have about that many more peaches left to process. That’s not counting the ones that are still on the other tree which I expect should be ready in the next few weeks.