garbage

On this week of global climate change protests, I should be proud of the fact that people are finally waking up and realizing that our natural world is in trouble.  But it is easy to march in a parade and wave a sign.  What are people actually doing to make the world a cleaner place?  Do they walk the walk, or just talk the talk?

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a walk on the shore.  I went to my favourite spot, a wooden bench with steps down to the shore in Stanhope, PEI.  I planned to sit for a while and look out at the lovely sea view, the blue herons and seagulls. 

But at the top of the stairs near the road I found a blue bag half full of dirty beer bottles and cans.  Who would do that?  I saw more cans glinting in the sun, so I walked down the steps and collected more beer cans and pop cans filled with seaweed.  I also found shiny foil candy wrappers, styrofoam from broken buoys, a piece of rope and netting from fishing gear, a Purina feed bag, plastic strapping, and half a for sale sign.

Humans are not good stewards of our beautiful planet, and I don't think that will ever change.  People do not want to be inconvenienced if it means doing the right thing.  They don't want to take that extra step of putting garbage in a place where it won't end up damaging our world.

This is the view I want to keep pristine - eelgrass protecting a sensitive sandy shoreline from erosion.

This wild rose gives me a bit of hope.  It has pushed its way through an opening in the wood.  It shows that nature is resilient and can repair human damage if given a chance..
The earth has survived multiple extinctions and has brought forth new life over and over again.  I hope it can do so again.

carrots

In spite of the cold spring and the lack of rain for six weeks, I harvested a lovely variety of carrots this year.
I was surprised to find that although they were all planted at the same time, the different varieties produced a huge range of sizes and resistance to bugs and disease.

I found that carrot top size is no indication of how long the roots will be.  the longest tops didn't translate to the longest roots.
But what did make a difference was distance between each plant.  Those varieties that had poor germination and therefore had lots of room between them (thinning is backbreaking work that I always put off until never) were much much bigger.

I found the purple carrots had the fewest disease problems.  The white carrots had a bit of damage from carrot rust fly larvae.  My theory is that the darker carrots are harder for the larvae to find in the soil.  The white ones must shine like beacons.

One variety, a red carrot, had more disease problems than the others.  The one at left had rot right in the middle of the root.

That weird yellow bunch of nodules is probably the result of root knot nematodes. These plant parasitic roundworms attack the roots of many vegetables.  The recommendation I found is to treat the soil before planting the seeds with a different type of nematode:  Steinernema feltiae.
Because only one variety seems susceptible, I will instead just avoid that variety in future!

sick grapes

Every year I look forward to a feast of grapes.  I planted a sickly valiant grape vine about 15 years ago.  It was just 2 feet tall and half dead, and then when my husband mistakenly took a weed whacker to it, I thought it was over.  But it came back better than ever, and it looks much older and gnarlier than it should.
Valiant produces big numerous clusters of dark blue grapes, which taste amazingly grapey.  They are only the size of big blueberries, and they each have at least two seeds, but they sure are good!

This is what they are supposed to look like in early September - still green, but plump and starting to turn dark.
However, this year, just a very few clusters look this good.

Most of the clusters look like this.  The grapes are wrinkled and sunken and covered with grey mould.

Many of the leaves are also covered with tiny dark dots and look faded and mouldy.

My internet research has come up with two likely  culprits:  Botritis cineria |(grey mould) or black rot.  Either way, there seems to be no cure.  Advice includes pruning excess branches to improve air circulation, cutting off and burning infected leaves and fruit, and even destroying the whole plant and not planting another grape vine in the same spot for at least 10 years, because the fungus pathogen can live in the soil that long.

So I will have to hang on to good memories of tasting the grapeyest grapes, and enjoy the vines as a privacy cover, not as a source of a delicious snack.