Tomatoes are Dying and We're Making Tacos 🌮

It is mid-July, which means we are in the season of using the garden in all of our meals. So this morning for breakfast, we had avocado toast with fresh basil and tomatoes from the garden. For lunch, I made grilled zucchini wraps. For dinner, we're going to make tacos. So we're going to make seitan tacos. And seitan is a wheat-based protein substitute. And we're going to put radishes and romaine and onions. Oh, and also peppers. Let me go pick some peppers. So I'm going to go outside and pick some things, bring you guys along with me, and we'll do a garden harvest. One of the first ones of the season that I'm bringing you along for. Malachi, do you want tacos for dinner? Do you want to eat? It's been a while since I've brought you guys out in the garden. We were in Maine for a week and we've just been super busy. And honestly, I've been dealing with a little bit of anxiety, which has made it difficult for me to get out the camera and share the garden with you guys. Because anxiety makes me really stressed about the garden at this time of year. So I'm working on that. I don't know if any of you guys deal with that too, but I just wanted to show you this really beautiful view that is really new to me. So let me turn you guys around so you can see it. Sage wants all of my attention right now. Little camera hog. Hi Sage. This is a lovely view that I'm really just enjoying. These roses had something bothering them, but they're still looking beautiful even with whatever was bothering them. I'm not sure exactly. And also this rose bush is continuing. So pretty. Hey, look who's coming to visit us. Come say hi Malachi. Nothing gets better than this view. I know that's where the Monarch is. Suddenly we have no space anymore in our walkway. Hi Bubba. It is super warm outside, but it's okay. I'm appreciating the warmth because we've had a lot of cool wet weather and we've had a lot of issues in our garden because of it. One thing that's not struggling though is this kitchen garden. It is just looking so lovely and I still need to record a full tour of this beautiful space. My dream kitchen garden space. So I'll do that. I'll do that soon. I promise. I have a lot of content I want to get out to you guys, but now let's keep walking around and make sure that we get the things harvested. So I've got this climbing rose right here, which is a David Austin. And then on the other side, right over here, I have this tangerine skies climbing rose. And as you can see, this one's looking really lovely as well. And it's already getting ready to climb the trellis. So it's going to be a really beautiful arbor here. I've got some zinnias in bloom. They're just going to continue to pop out flowers and I'll come in here and cut these guys so they just get bushier and bushier. Over here, snapdragons are going to be blooming soon. See our new fire pit in the background. Greenstock is going absolutely crazy. I've got just tons of beautiful things like zinnias, lots of lettuces. We're going to pick lettuces off of the greenstock tonight for dinner like some of this remain. Also, what's hit our farm lately? Japanese beetles. So we've been handpicking those off the plants. I do have one really special thing I want to show you guys that is in our kitchen garden right now. So let me walk over here to the kitchen garden to show you this surprise. Hey Sage. Okay, so you can see this very large pumpkin plant. I can't remember what kind of pumpkin this is, but let's head on over. I don't know if you guys can see that. That is a monarch chrysalis and I actually saw the chrysalis happening, which is really awesome. So I'm going to put in some footage right here so you guys can see what that was like when I found the chrysalis and then when I went back out a couple minutes later to take a picture and realize that it was already completely... Well, I found the caterpillar and then I went outside a couple minutes later after showing Chris and it was completely in its chrysalis. That was kind of crazy. I was not expecting that. I've also got a bunch of tomato starts over here. These were all free. A local store was just giving them away. So I picked up a bunch of tomatoes and some oregano, thyme, and some different kinds of hot peppers that I am not growing in our garden. And you might be wondering why the heck would I have gotten a bunch of tomatoes. So this year for the first time ever, we are having some really serious tomato disease. I've had tomato disease in the past, but normally it comes right as the season is ending and it doesn't really affect my harvest too much, but this year is totally different. So I'm going to walk on over to the tomatoes because I've got harvest some things. So I'm going to show you what we're dealing with right now. It's been very frustrating because I can't do anything about it. I just have to kind of let it take its course. I can prune and I'm going to spray with copper fungicide actually, which is an organic option. But other than that, I can't do a whole lot. So one of the things I can do is plant more tomatoes. So we're going to be pulling out our garlic this week and in its place, I'm going to be planting some more tomatoes and hopefully we'll end up with plenty of tomatoes for fresh eating. So that's my goal. In the kitchen garden, I have all this just wild milkweed that I am letting stay to benefit the monarchs, but it doesn't just benefit monarchs. It also benefits lots of other pollinators like this bumblebee here. It's such a cool little habitat here. You see the bumblebee, got a pair of ladybugs mating. Also check this out. That my friends is the monarch butterfly caterpillar. How cool is that? Just a little itty bitty baby. I know the bumblebees are just so busy. Yeah, it's like a really cool. Hi Malachi, you can be part of this habitat. So ironically, just like a week or two ago, I was kind of feeling like what's the point of having milkweed? I wasn't seeing any monarchs. I wasn't seeing any caterpillars. I wasn't seeing any eggs and I was feeling kind of frustrated. Like what's the point of having all this milkweed and giving it space if it's not doing anything? And now guys, I feel quite the opposite. There's like a bunch of ladybugs on here. Tons of bees. Obviously we're getting monarchs. We have a little baby caterpillar that I showed you. We have that chrysalis over there, which the caterpillar likely moved from this patch of milkweed over to that squash plant to form its chrysalis. And I'm just feeling very rejuvenated by all that's happening over here with milkweed. It smells amazing too. It smells like a plumeria, which is a flower my dad used to have in Southern California. So it's really enjoyable from that regard. So I'm getting distracted by all these lovely things in the garden, but I want to go out and harvest some radishes, some kohlrabi, see if we've got any cilantro hiding around. I don't think we have any more tomatoes right now. We've been eating them all because they're just coming in slowly, but I'm going to do a quick tomato check. You guys, I have to show you this hookah culture bed because somebody has got to see this beauty other than us. It's just, it's just amazing. It's just packed with these gorgeous zinnias. Okay, so the radishes are packed in back here behind this beautiful artichoke. So I planted this guy this year, was not expecting a harvest, but here it goes. There's at least three on this plant. And guess what? See this little guy over here? That is a volunteer artichoke. Artichokes came off, seeds came off of this plant last year and spread itself all the way over here. I did not plant it. It came up on its own and has a fruit on it. So that's awesome. It planted itself and is growing fruit already in its first year, which is pretty amazing for our zone six New York climate. So I've got artichokes here, here, and a bunch on here. I actually, I'm going to let that one and that one flower. I don't know what's happening with this guy, but I'm going to let it flower and I'm going to harvest the other, the other three for eating. You know, I do get really disappointed by the garden, especially things like, like the tomatoes and the issues I'm having with, with those, which I'll show you in a second, but I need to remind myself of the really exciting things like, like artichokes coming back and, and getting to eat something that most people don't, don't have a chance to grow in their garden. So focusing on the good stuff today, but let me show you what we're dealing with as far as tomato disease. Okay. So if you look at the plants at first glance, they look really healthy, right? Lots of green growth, lots of fruit happening down there. Tons of fruit. We have lots of fruit in here. One is blushing, so we should get tomatoes really, really soon. But if you take a look in here, there's some really bad disease happening. There, all under here. Here's a really good example of this disease in here. Even, even on the stems, you can see the spots all in here. I also have something happening over here, which I actually believe this disease is much worse. This looks like the beginning of late blight. Moved into the shade so I could explain different tomato diseases. So the first one I showed you, all those spots on the leaves, that is Septoria leaf spot, kills your plants eventually, just like all the other diseases. The second thing I showed you, late blight is the worst, most destructive, quickest killing your plants. And it's just super unfortunate to see, but there's nothing I could have done. The only thing I could have done was plant our tomatoes in a low tunnel, which I mean, sorry, plant our tomatoes in a high tunnel, which wasn't a possibility because we don't have a high tunnel. So that's literally the only thing I could have done to keep this disease from just wreaking havoc on my tomatoes because everything else, like I'm pruning them more than I normally do, trying to give them more airflow. I guess I could have also planted them further apart. I normally don't have to, and I could have pruned them better, but I just didn't anticipate this disease because we've never had it before, this bad, this early. And the reason we have it is because of just an excess of rain the past few weeks that won't let up. We came home to rain all day after our trip and then it rained yesterday. We had a thunderstorm last night. It's just going to be a bad year for tomatoes, and I'm just trying to accept that because there really isn't anything else I can do. That's okay. Not every year is a good year, and those are just lessons from the garden. Maybe a bad year for the tomatoes, but it is a great year for the hugelkultur bed. Look at these hollyhocks in here. They remind me of hibiscus. And we've got some beautiful yarrow. This one's a berry from fruition seeds. And strawflower, which I just can't get enough of. So beautiful. So now that I've talked all about our garden woes and some of the garden highs, like the monarchs and the hugelkultur bed, I'm going to go ahead and pick some radishes. Is it just me that has like random pots throughout the garden? I'm guessing not, but oh well. We're also going to pick an onion from the onion patch. I'm gonna go with this ginormous Walla Walla onion right in here. Look at that beauty. I may have a lot of issues this year, but it sure is pretty. I also need to pick a couple peppers. I think I'm going to go with, see if we have any jalapenos, and then if not, I'm going to pick some Hungarian wax peppers. Malachi, coming through the garden hot. Some volunteer potatoes gone wild and tomatillos in here. I pulled out all the peas just the other day, which is what all that debris is. I'm just mulching them in place over there and then over here I'm gonna probably... On this top it looks like there are no peppers, but underneath there's loads of peppers. I don't remember what else I planted in here. There's a lot of stuff happening. I think these are the Pippin's Golden Honey over here. Okay, these are my jalapenos. I don't see anything that's quite ready yet. So yeah, these are my Hungarian wax peppers. So I'm just gonna pick one. Just got one here. That'll be good for dinner. It's a miracle that you and I are finally here. My cilantro plate isn't quite big enough yet to pick from. A tomato I'm rooting to start a new one. Okay friends, now it's taco time and I apologize for the bright light coming through, but I've got romaine right here. Got a big Walla Walla onion, super big, right here. A kohlrabi, a bunch of radishes, and a Hungarian wax pepper. I'm gonna use the rest of the zucchini we've got here for our tacos. I'm gonna use this Seitan product, which we really, really like. So the final product is zucchini, Seitan, and onion tacos with a kohlrabi and radish slaw, marinated in lime juice, and then topped with romaine and a vegan aioli with just vegan mayonnaise and homemade hot sauce. So that is dinner. We're gonna go ahead and eat and I'll see you guys soon. Bye friends! we can look back someday baby don't you understand