Saturday, July 12, 2008
So far, so good.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Now what? Powdery Mildew?
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:
- Cut off all infected leaves.
- Created, as best as possible, dry ground under and around plants.
- Sprayed with baking soda solution.
- 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.
Monday, July 7, 2008
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.
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.