I tore out the cucumbers today.
It just about killed me. I knew my little garden brought me a lot of joy, but funny that I didn't realize how much of that joy I took in watching those vines climb the strings and try to grab onto my tomatoes.
It's hard for me to watch the vines die at the end of the season, but at least there is a rightness to that, in that it fits with the life cycle of the seasons.
This? This just felt so damn wrong.
My garden is swimming in ornamental gourds and pumpkins that I planted from decorations I bought last fall.
If I replant cucumbers, it will be in the same spot and they will be overcome with Downy again, I'm guessing. With all those cucurbits vining everywhere I doubt I can avoid it.
I suppose it's stupid, since the cucs I buy in the store have been drowned in fungicide from day one, that I don't want to replant and have to plan on treating.
Mine taste better (They are the old fashioned Straight 8s--no resistance at all--but damn they taste like a cucumber should.
) and if I'm going to eat fungicide, it might as well be mine, right?
I just hate doing that to my soil and the soil microbes.
So not sure what to do.
Kitties.....Pondering, and wondering if she has the heart for gardening in this resistant diseases environment.