Strike One for the Gardeners...somewhat

Well, we have had our first hard lesson...mosaic virus. Apparently, this virus attacks all sorts of veggies and flowers and we just ripped up all of our tomatoes, beans, peppers, and sunflowers. We started to notice the leaves on our tomato plants were curling and looked liked ferns. And the fact that we have had green cherry tomatoes, full size, on the vine for 2 weeks. Then the peppers started to curl...and then the bush beans.

After some online investigation we found out that there is no treatment other than pulling everything up and boiling all of the tools that we have used and then using strong soap on them. I am waiting for an email from our local extension office to see if there is anything we have to do to the soil. The easiest way to introduce the virus to your garden is buying tomato plants, and then it is easily spread by bugs or by infected garden tools or your own hands. Ewwww...

The silver lining is that it has not affected the zucchini by a long shot...we have already harvested 2 and have about 8 in the works with roughly 3 dozen blooms on our 4 plants. And now that the tomatoes are gone, they have more room to spread...

In other, much more exciting news, Timothy weighs 13 pounds and 3.5 ounces! Yes, that means he put on a half pound over the past 4 days. :) We have the green flag to increase his dosage and shorten the length of time he needs to be on the feeding pump to 20 hours a day. This is also good news because the whole practicing-with-solid-foods-thing is not working out when he is getting fed constantly and doesn't seem to have an appetite. Next weight check is Friday...