Bad News

Today is the day.  What day, you ask?  Why today starts the last week of August!  It even feels like the end of August.  How?  It only got up to 90° today!  And it's supposed to be in the low 90s all week, which is a heap sight better than the low 100s.  Still no rain, though…

You know, I almost feel sorry for August.  Nobody likes it.  It's hot, there are no holidays in August, and the kids don't like it because they have to go back to school.  It seems like the best thing about August is when it ends.  

Before we get to the bad news, here's a bit of good news.  A couple came by yesterday afternoon and picked up all of that scrap wood I had stacked up, even the bits that were partially rotten.  I'd told them to look through and take what they wanted, and the man replied, "Oh, I'm going to take it all!''  And they did.  So that's a little bit less I have to pay someone to haul off.  They also asked if I had any scrap iron, and I showed them all the leftover tin that the previous owners had left behind the fence.  I told the man, "If there is anything there you can use, you're welcome to take it."  He said they'd come back and get it later, after they'd emptied their trailer. 

I wasn't really going to do anything with all of that, because it wasn't my stuff and it's not on my land, but if they want to clean it up, they're more than welcome to.  If anything, they can probably sell it for scrap metal.  

Now for the bad news, I lost another pepper plant.  

It was just like the others, fine yesterday morning, and dead by evening.  I did a bit of research, and watched a video by The Pepper Geek, and from what I can figure, I've got a virus or fungus.  Since it's a brand new bed, I believe it was introduced by the banana peppers I bought at Walmart.   Looking back after the fact, I do remember that I had one little plant that I thought was going to die, but it eventually perked up and grew.  I wonder if that was the one that brought the disease into the bed.  I guess we'll never know for sure. 

But a fungal infection is also consistent with that mold looking stuff I'd been seeing at the bases of the dead plants, so I'm pretty sure that's what is infecting my bed.  According to Calvin -- a.k.a. The Pepper Geek -- these types of infections are incurable and the best thing to do is pull the plant up and burn it.  Not only that, the disease is in the soil, and can stay there for years.  It will eventually kill every plant in that bed.  

I think it's also infected the cayenne plants that I've got planted in that same bed.

You can see how much more healthy the ones I've got planted in the other beds look, even though they're droopy from the afternoon heat right now. 

Their color is much better, and the peppers look like normal peppers, not the short stubby things the sickly plants are putting out. 

With that in mind, I made the difficult decision to just pull them all up and put them into the hot compost instead of trying to overwinter them.  I was going to do that when I got home from work this afternoon, but I changed my mind.  We're getting close to the end of the growing season anyway, so I decided to let the plants be until they died--whether from the fungus or the frost, whichever comes first.  

Then I'll cover the bed with some black landscape fabric to absorb the heat, and top that with a sheet of Visqueen, which will help contain the heat in that soil.  Hopefully, that will raise the temp enough to kill off any remaining spores in the soil.  I may even leave that bed fallow next year, just to make sure.  I don't know.  I doubt I'll grow more banana peppers for a while, because I've already got more than I can use as it is.  

And just to brighten your day, I was finally able to see one of this year's fawns. 

 The adult deer were nibbling on corn in the back, and this little guy had the zoomies behind them.  It was so cute.