Good morning, and it just goes to show it's always something. Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
Denver is still breaking heat records, with a record high of 92° on the 28th. Over all, the month of September was 4.6° warmer than normal. Moisture was scant, with a total of .06", 1.08" lower than normal.
It's been 118 years since Denver clocked in a 90° temperature in October — and that was on the 1st — but highs in the 80s aren't uncommon at the beginning of the month. However we also can switch very rapidly to cold weather — in 1969 it was 85° on October 2; 15 inches of snow fell on October 3 and 4.
We've a cool down forecast over the weekend — going down into the 70s today. Our nights have been cool, so the trees are on schedule and are starting to change color and shed leaves.
And the weather pattern over the summer brought a new bug to my garden — disturbing images over the fold.
My tomatoes were slow to ripen this year, and I didn't get a ripe one until mid-August. But, in contrast to last year when an extremely cool spring and summer left the plants stunted with few fruits, this year showed the promise of a bumper crop: huge, sprawling vines smothered in blossoms and ripening tomatoes.
Two or three weeks ago, I noticed the tomato patch looked as if a giant had walked through with a leaking bag of sugar — leaves, tomatoes, ground were all coated with a sticky, white granular substance. I'd never seen anything like it but had no clue as to what it could be — perhaps pollen which, because of our lack of rain, hadn't been washed away? Residue somehow left from the Invasion of the Xcel subcontractors? Manna from heaven?
I didn't concern myself with it too much as the plants were still growing and setting fruit. However, last week I noted that a lot of the tomatoes distorted with oddly-colored patches and tough, leathery skin. And there was even more sugar-stuff every where.
So, I went off to the Interwebs where I eventually figured out that we had potato/tomato psyllids (I had a bitch of a time figuring out what to google, since I had no clue what I was looking for: was it a disease? an insect? something else?).
The good news is that psyllids are only an occasional problem here. They don't over winter in Colorado, but migrate in from Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and then only if weather conditions are right.
The bad news is that the infestation I have is so heavy there's really not much I can do about it at this point. I'm still getting some edible tomatoes, so I'll leave the plants until they eventually are killed by frost. The psyllids may also have wiped out any hope for a successful potato crop, but I won't know until I go to dig them. Who knows — my attempt to grow potatoes may be why I have so many psyllids.
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Too bad pooties aren't as good at keeping teeny bugs out of the garden as they are with dealing with squirrels and grasshoppers. |
That's what's happening here. What's going on in your gardens?