So far, so good.

I am happy to announce that while not completely gone, the affected leaves already look better! Yay!


This is one of the lesser affected leaves after treatment.


One of the worse leaves I did not trim off. Part of the experiment. It needs another treatment.

Now what? Powdery Mildew?

Yep, it's true, I come back from vacation to find that powdery mildew has set in. Blame it on the heavy, late afternoon rains we've been having. Gotta love the South! So, as is my way, I hit the all knowing Internet to see what I can find. I found two things that interested me: baking soda and milk.

I found more on the baking soda, so I went with that. It seems that the baking soda messes with the PH on the leaves surface and the spores are not able to reproduce. I have yet to see if it will kill the spores as one site said. The best info I found at The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service. Here is a link to the info on the milk at Associated Content, it may be worth a try and I probably will.

Woo hoo! now I can provide my own shots of what this stuff looks like. I wish it were not a disease. :(


What I did:

1. Cut off all infected leaves.
   
2. Created, as best as possible, dry ground under and around plants.
   
3. Sprayed with baking soda solution.
   
4. Hoped for a sunny day to keep drying things up.
   

Tonight the plants already looked better. I sprayed again with the solution and will prune any remaining diseased leaves tomorrow. I think because I am in the South and humidity is an issue that in the future I will keep leaves trimmed back as the plant grows. Also, these squash are bush and perhaps vines will allow for better air circulation. Ah yea, the learning curve.
I do have a good bit of ripening fruit. I am looking forward to regular squash for a few weeks. We will see if I enough to have to freeze. Only time will tell.

Here's another shot I took of a couple of my ripening tomatoes. It's not all bad.

Gardening while on vacation or, the one foot zuchinni

Having a garden is like having a pet, or children. You can't just pick up and leave and hope that everyone/thing will be OK. You have to make arrangements. Then, you have to hope that your arrangements are satisfactory and when you return all will be in order. Or, at least a close facsimile there of. So it was that I left for a convention immediately followed by week at the beach the week before last. I trusted the friend, she has proven faithful before, packed up and left town.

Let me just say this, dang those zucchinis grow fast!

This is our official first "fruit" of the garden. It was waiting for me when I got home like a giant, "welcome home" banner. Surprisingly, this was the only one, my plants are slow on the female flowers it would seem. There are many gestating, but none have matured yet. The fate of this zuch would be tempura.
Slice.

Fry.Eat.