Ah, relief....

I went to Renfrow's today. For two things. Number one: Pumpkin plant. Check. Number Two: Tomato Blight. As I mentioned, I removed the infected leaves. Well, much to my dismay, the blight is just showing up at the bottom of the plant. It continues. WELL, as I've been celebrating all the rain that we've had in Charlotte because I haven't had to water in three weeks, the rain is the cause. It's too much and it's causing the blight to appear. The soil is way too moist and hasn't had enough time to dry out between rain storms. Can you believe it? It's nothing I've done.....something completely out of my control. The lady helping me said that everyone else is having the same problem. She also said (and I quote), "This has been a really tough year for gardening". Is it wrong that I wanted to kiss her? I naturally chalked up all my gardening issues to my inexperience. As usual, I was being too hard on myself. This is a tough year for gardening. Since then, I've been walking around with a smile on my face.


I also spoke to her about planting more cabbage and broccoli in the Fall. What, come again? I know, I know. With all the looper issues, I said I was done with the brassica family. Well.......I had to harvest the cabbage head at the end of last week. I went out one morning and found a MASS (and I mean large MASS!) of green, gobby, gooey, LARGE eggs of some type. It was DISGUSTING. I hadn't seen anything like it before. I don't know about you but I had no interest in finding out what was going to hatch out of those suckers. So, like any brave woman, I had my husband harvest the cabbage head and remove the plant and put it directly into the garbage. Shew. Crisis averted! I knew there were loopers in the head so we gave it a nice, long salt water bath. Only one worm floated to the surface but lots of tiny white eggs were floating in the dish afterwards. Anyhoo (I am long winded).....we started using the cabbage this weekend.


WOW!!! In my lifetime, I have never tasted cabbage like this. I didn't even know I liked cabbage this much. It is DIVINE. We've been adding shredded cabbage to our salads every night. Not only is the color GORGEOUS but the taste is simply out of this world. I can honestly say that it was worth every damn worm I pulled off that plant. Worth all of my obsessing. I would otherwise never have known how good cabbage can actually be.



The good news? The Renfrow lady told me that I won't have those looper issues in the Fall. Oh happy day!!! I am seriously ready to pop open champagne to celebrate the very thought of growing this ridiculously delicious cabbage without all the looper issues.


AND, I just have to say.......I know you've heard it all before....but I love veggie gardening. I LOVE IT.