Life Through My Eyes: 07/01/2017

It has been a very tough gardening year. The peppers came down with a severe case of black spot and it has really taken its toll on all of the pepper plants. I have treated them all repeatedly with fungicide and it has had minimal results. I have harvested some peppers off of the plants but I don't think any new peppers will be showing up. The leaves from the pepper plants have been falling off right and left to the point that on some plants all that is left is mostly a stem. They are some sad looking plants. They are a few that still have some buds on them but I am not sure what they will produce. The tomatoes on the deck have been having a tough time too. All in all it has been a real battle this season with all of the crops that I have planted.
Of the peppers that I have harvested I ended up pickling most of them and with the large tomatoes I ended up making and freezing sauce for the Winter months.
I re-planted some corn after my first crop turned out so poorly...my fault for being over ambitious and planting the corn to close together in order to get more rows in. All I got was under developed corn and stressed out stalks. After re-planting the corn was coming up nicely until some kind of bugs/insect/worm starting eating away at the stalks and even after treating the crop, whatever was eating it ate enough of the small interior stalk portion that it just toppled over. I ended up having to pull them all up. I pulled the plastic weed guard and and long metal staples up too.
I had been told that I should not plant any tomatoes or peppers in the planter containers using the same soil for 3 years do to the black spot so I dug up the soil in the corn garden and swapped out the soil from the pepper plant containers with the corn soil so each crop will get fresh soil next year and hopefully that will take care of the black spot issue.
It has been one thing after another this year and so disappointing.
I am going to be trying my luck again at growing some more Yukon Gold potatoes in a couple of weeks. I had pretty good luck earlier in the year with a mixed bag a fingerling potatoes and Yukon golds so this time it will be all Yukon golds.
Here is a photo of my pepper of the year..it is an Italian Heirloom grilling pepper:

You can see why it won pepper of the year

This is Part 6 and the last of our photographic journey through Venice, Italy
Below is San Marco, the Canpanile and the Doge's Palace on the right

Below is the Le Zitelle Church (Santa Maria della Presentazione)

Another work of art that is part of the La Biennale di Venezia 2017- 57th International Art Exhibition

Below is the entrance of the Arsenale in Venice as seen from the lagoon. If you look off to the middle left you will see a submarine on display. The Arsenale is where the Italian shipbuilders would build their military ships

Sometimes in the mood and sometimes not

This poor kitty was being tormented by all of those delectable birds playing freely just outside this window perch

This barge was carry containers full of wine

Venice just would not be Venice without Burger King

The Church of San Simeon Piccolo

Below are trash collectors. We had to separate our trash into garbage and recyclables. We would pile our small bags in our downstairs hallway near the front door. Sometime before 11:30 in the morning they would knock on our apartment door and we would press the buzzer unlocking the front door and allowing them to grab the plastic bags. This is how it was supposed to work in theory. Unfortunately we were out and about by the time they got to our place so we had piles of these little bags piling up. A couple of times s we were leaving for the day we would see them on the other side of the small canal so I would grab up all of the multi colored bags and take them over to the collector. Our Airbnb hostess told us that no one was allowed to place any trash bags outside so the knocking on the doors and buzzer system was used by everyone but I am sure that others had alternative ways of dealing with the trash disposal since many people work and weren't at home when the collectors came by.