troubles with tomatoes

One reason why we love living down here is the long growing season, we can plant in march and harvest through summer and replant in August or September with a new harvest. Downside? (Because there's always a downside) insect species that I'm still getting used to, new diseases, and rain, lots of rain. Rain you say? Don't plants love rain? Yes. Definitely, however too much rain can cause unstable soils (plants fall over) and rot...mold and rot. Gross.

My tomatoes understand these problems most of all. We try to grow organically (no pesticides, herbicides, etc. The only thing I'd put on my plant is something I'd eat).  So to keep them healthy (or to just keep them alive) I have to be very vigilant.
Keep in mind I can be dangerously forgetful.
Result?
Take a beautiful tomato plant:

Forget to check it for a couple of days? Bad idea.

Where did the leaves go? The end of the branches? Oh. This guy was hungry.

Can't find him? Just look up. He leaves a trail.

That, my friends, is your garden variety green hornworm.  He's such a jerk.
That's not the only problem we've delt with this summer. We've had a terrible case of Southern blight. It's a nasty, mean fungus that's pillaged three of our tomato plants. How rude.
This is what it looks like:

That white stuff? Yeah, that's the fungus attached to the roots, slowly, cruely, killing my summer salsas.
Ugh.

Time to replant.

Any suggestions for southern blight or green hornworm remedies?

weekends around here

I don't know what you do on weekends.
But we shell crowder peas...

(forgive the obscenely blurry picture)
Lots of them

and then I blanch them for the winter (or until I can't wait anymore...I'm usually pretty impatient. I give these until September)

Oil spill related news will be common. Just fyi

Widespread oyster deaths found on La. reefs - WLOX-TV and WLOX.com - The News for South Mississippi

Just because the leak has stopped...

the drama continues.

BP buys up Gulf Scientists for legal defense

Welcome to the blogosphere.

I never suspected myself to be a blogger, in fact, I still question my ability to keep up the posts. However, I've felt inspired to do this for a while. Primarily because I live so far away from my closest friends (other than Tom, obviously) and family, that I felt this would be a useful way to keep people up to date with my life. That, and I have several friends with serious misconceptions of the deep south. I'm trying to paint a better picture, a real picture.

Another reason for this blog is that it's a great forum for advice. I'm planning a wedding (and if you know me, you know I'm not a planner) so I'll use this a launch pad for ideas, inspirations, etc and I'd love to receive comments advice, or suggestions.

Cooking.
Gardens.
General Domestics.
I'm trying these on for size as well. My goal is to focus on recipes that use fresh, local, and/or organic ingredients, and I'm trying to stay away from anything processed. I try to stick with Michael Pollan's 7 rules for eating. I still have a lot to learn though, but I've improved. I've had some successes (and failures) with new recipes and cooking experiments (usually involving canning and or a huge mess in the kitchen), and I am hoping to start sharing my experiences.