Last week sure was a dreary one here on the farm, as I'm sure it was for most everyone throughout the province! The smoke from the B.C. wildfires started really drifting in Tuesday evening and seemed to get progressively worse as the week went on. Somewhat as a relief, the smoke actually kept the temperature about 5 degrees cooler than the forecast had called for and prevented the sun from shining down all week, which limited some of the drought stress the veggies have been feeling after a few weeks with no rain and pretty scorching heat. Luckily, we got about 5mm of rain last night, washing away most of the smoke in the air and giving the plants a little drink.
The other sad moment of the week came yesterday when I was walking through the field and found clear signs of frost on much of the squash and cucumber crops! It was just a patchy frost, but there was some pretty serious damage especially to the acorn squash and the pickling cucumbers. Depending on how the next month progresses, this will mean either a delay or loss of those two crops but the rest should be ok. I'm even thinking I might be able to harvest the first few spaghetti squash as early as next week.
Not much else to report. I also caught a cold from our toddler at the end of the week, and a chest cold coupled with all that smoke left me with a burning cough and bed rest so I didn't get much work done besides getting as much irrigation to the veggies as possible.
