Oh blogging friends, I’ve missed you. I’ve been neglectful to my blog but am still here! September has been a very busy month with starting a new program in university among other things.
My garden has been quite pitiful this month I’m afraid. There were many tomatoes in the early month until late BLIGHT(I believe) hit and essentially killed all 7 plants. I was devastated. Here are some photos so you can see what it looked like. It sort of seems like the tomatoes are rotting from the inside out.
I did however get hundreds of tomatoes, I just felt awful for all the ones that never got to ripen. Food waste is my equivalent to nails on a chalkboard – I just can’t handle it. I ended up ripping out all 7 plants and attempting to save any green fruits. With the non blighted tomatoes I decided to use my dehydrator again and make sundried tomatoes. It was fun to experiment with the different varieties of tomatoes.
In other news, that garden skunk I mentioned turns out to be a family of very busy, very enthusiastic squirrels. I used to enjoy watching squirrels run around and frolic…now I want to spray them with my hose’s jet setting. I made some sort of homemade squirrel deterrent using vinegar chopped garlic and black pepper…it didn’t work unfortunately.
I have just planted some winter seeds including: spinach, carrots, beets and bokchoy. Here’s hoping squirrel doesn’t decide to dig them up and have a nibble.
Does ANYONE know how to avoid this horrible blight? Or is it just part of gardening? I should probably move on and get over it 🍅And has anyone had a squirrel digging up their garden? What has worked for you? I’m excited to hear some tips and certainly excited to hear all about your fall and winter gardens!!🌱🌱
nannygrannie 
It’s hard to tell from your pictures. It could be Mosaic virus, which is in some weeds and spread by aphids; or it could be irregular ripening, which can be caused by too much water and compacted soil or the wrong weather conditions. Usually the plants recover and later fruits ripen alright. It doesn’t look like bacterial spot. Sounds like you got lots of good tomatoes, though, so you’ll be eating well into the winter.
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You might be able to catch the squirrels and move them somewhere else.
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We’ve lost our tomatoes to late blight as well so I can understand your frustration very well. We turned the green tomatoes we could save into a delicious chutney. How did your sundried tomatoes come out?Sounds very interesting.
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