What can be done about plant diseases?

Infected leaves and fruit (looks burnt!)

After my post up-dating the fact that I actually started the garden and its progress, a friend ask if I was having problems with diseases on my cucumbers and what I was doing to treat it.

Infected squash leaves

While my garden looks nice and lush in the post from two weeks ago, there were a bunch of leaves that had powdery mildew on them. And since that post, there still is a bunch of powdery mildew on my squash and cucumber plants. I really hate the idea of just getting rid of the entire plant all together, so I do my best to treat the disease as best as I can. When I searched and asked about eliminating the fungus, there did not seem to be any fail safe method other than getting disease resistant plants. Powdery mildew is one disease that is a common problem and persists as long as there are hot days and relatively cool nights (humidity doesn't seem to be an issue).

Last year, when I had a problem with blight on my tomatoes, I used a copper based fungicide that is approved for organic gardening (which I try to use whenever possible). However, the copper fungicide is not something that you're really supposed to use when the plants are fruiting (oh and it's not really effective against the powdery mildew I have this year). 

Blight on last years tomatoes (above)

Removed infected leaves and fruit

Neem oil (below)

The local garden center (Merrifield Garden Center) recommended neem oil. It doesn't eradicate the fungus but it seems to kill of some of it and at least slow it down.  You have to make sure your plants are really well watered before you apply it. I was warned several times when buying the bottle that it could burn the plants if they were not well hydrated. And it can only be applied every 5-7 days, so diligent treatment is a must.

Other things that I have done, removed yellowed/dying leaves and fruits. This seems to help, especially since gray/brown leaves will probably be covered in spores, which only spreads the fungus. A bunch of the websites sites that I read suggested that the more air movement there is among the plants is also helpful in preventing fungal spread. After removing the leaves, they should go directly in the trash and not be composted.

There are a few methods that I haven't tried yet. One is sulfur dust or spray, the biggest earning is (again) burning the plants. I didn't seem to be able to locate any at the Home Deport or the garden centers, so I might have to order it on Amazon. The other method that Growing a Greener World and Growing Real Food have mentioned is spraying the plants with diluted milk. It sounds very interesting and would be a bit more economical than ordering sulfur dust, so I will probably try that method next.

Regardless of the diseases the plants have, I've been able to harvest cucumbers and squash.

My garden, the best analogy to my life at the moment

Ok, it's been about two months since my last post. Life has been all sorts of crazy for me (which from some points of view is my normal speed). Mid-August I started another semester of graduate school, this time taking two classes instead of one, and I also started to teach another class at my school. Unlike the curriculum for the freshman, this one I or seniors and is a bit underdeveloped. My job is definitely harder this year than last year. In addition, I started volunteering for a political campaign. Technically, I am supposed to be an intern; however, I'm more like a canvassing pro. And on top of all that, I was also training (or trying to train) for Ragnar DC. So if being a teacher and student at the same time was not hard enough, I am also a long distance runner and volunteer. With so much  going on, I am surprised sometimes at the fact I can get some (but nowhere near all) things done.

One thing that has fallen to the way side was my vegetable garden. And though it looked quite haggard, it was productive! My messy little garden was very productive. Especially those tomato plants.

I hope that I am at least as productive as my garden, but my productivity and my garden's productivity are not really all that comparable. All i know is I've been crazy busy with life. And my garden has been going crazy producing tomatoes (I'm thinking some time to make a marinara sauce is in order).

P.S. Since I just finished running Ragnar this past weekend, that is one thing off the list. (I will post more about my post-Ragnar running plans later this week)

Progress and set backs

Tomatoes and peppers, early last week. 

 

Early last week, I was able to get out to the garden and take a couple photos on its progress. This was after I had realized that I had neglected my garden for a couple of weeks and had let weeds grow all over the walk ways and sides of the beds. I had also found a few slugs (possible suspects for the near death of one of my bean plants and numerous squash flowers) that were also removed from the garden. But after all the unwanted vegetation was removed I was able to see that there had been some progress in veggie production

Here are a few specimens from the garden.

Beans coming soon!

Romas - starting to come in. 

First successful bell pepper

First tomato!

Zucchini... no looking so good

But, not all has been a success. I've already had to prematurely remove two peppers and a couple of zucchinis because they were infected with something. There were soft spots on them and I removed them in hopes that the infection would not spread. 

Erly blight on tomato plant *sad face*

Tomatoes as of this morning

It has also been raining here plenty, which is both a blessing and a curse. I haven't had to spend time in the morning making sure that my plants have had a healthy dose of agua before the heat of the day; however, high humidity and heat make for ideal conditions for fungal growth. And lo and behold... the blight has already beseiged my indeterminate tomato plants! I've gone through and picked off infected leaves and sprayed with a copper based fungicide. Only time will tell if I get more than one tomato from all four plants. I've seen some signs of it on my Romas, but I'm hoping that early enough treatment will help stem the spread. Since this is my first time growing tomatoes, I'll admit that I had not thoroughly read into growing tomatoes beyond planing them pretty deep into the ground to provide a strong root system for the plants. Had I continued to do more reading on how to tend to them as they grew, I might have done a different staking system and monitored them more carefully. (This video has some great suggestions http://youtu.be/pZWRfLGqH1M, which I will try to implement next year). 

Squash, benas, and corn

Butternut squash!

In regards to the rest of the plants, they seem to be doing alright. But, I think I burned a few beans with too much fertilizer. I was using a fertilizer that was supposed to be added with water but ran out of that when got to the beans and used a different one. I don't think I applied it correctly because some of the leaves have yellowed. However, where the little white buds first appeared last week have small beans on them. I'm hoping that they'll be ready to pick in a few days. 

The male flowers on the corn are up, and earlier I saw set of female flowers on my corn. So, there will be at least one ear of corn (but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more) 

Also, I have noticed that I have winter squash already growing nicely! 

On another note, the hubs found a little snake in our yard. The little thing was about eight-inches in length and hiding in the mulch near the mail box. He moved it on to the side walk so I could get a better shot of it. We let it go afterwards because we didn't think it would be a threat to Puck. 

S-s-seee you later!!

Macro view of the garden

Tomato flower

Late in 2012, Aaron wanted to up-grade our camera equipment to the fancier  professional versions of the entry level DSLRs that we had. With the camera change, a change in the lenses also was in order. One lens that I have been eying for a while was a macro lens - which if you are a Nikon shooter, it's brand of macro lenes are labelled "micro." My wonderful husband spoiled me with getting one of these lenes. However, due to teaching, taking graduate school-level classes, races, and gardening, I haven't really had a chance to play with the new toy camera, much less with the fun our new lenses. That is until last night. With no grading or any other pressing paper work hanging over my head, I thought it was just as good as any to take a few shots. Since I've been blogging about the garden, I figured the plants would be the perfect test subjects. 

Young tomato

The tomato plants were among the first subjects. Not only did I get some shots of the flowers, it allowed me to be able to carefully inspect the plants for signs of fruits. The past few days weeks had me annoyed with the lack of tomato fruits. There had been plenty of flowers but not fruits. I thought that there could be a lack of pollinators, though I'm not outside very much to verify. I thought this was equally annoying since I had assumed that tomatoes were not picky when it comes to fruiting (I think I need to do more research about this). While shooting a flower on one of my store bought plants, I noticed a tiny little fruit!! I'm hoping that there will be a few more fruits that will begin to show up, and that I do not have to "replace" the pollinators in my yard.

Zucchini bud

This past weekend, I saw bright yellow flowers from my squash plants. I hope that I'll see it a bit more opened up to take some cool shots of it as well.

The corn, which were started from seed, have been growing nicely. One fun thing about the corn plants is the swirl pattern in the middle of their stocks where the new corn growth emerges. It looks like a green vortex.

Looking into the corn stalk

The couple of pictures below are from one of the hostas across the drive way from the vegetable garden. I thought it would be fun to play with Lightroom and see what effects I can apply to the photo, although I had not installed the program on to my computer until last night. Quick note, most of the pictures in this post were cropped and had the exposure adjusted on them to make sure they were not too dark. After playing with the tone, saturation, and vibrance of the photo (and cropping too) the shot on the right is what came out. Not too shabby (imho).

With school out and my main objectives being working on the garden, finishing my course work towards my teaching license, and working out a lot, I'm hoping that I'll have more time to pay around with the camera.  

Mission Creep... Garden Style

Garden at the beginning of May

Garden with all three beds as of last week

My goal for 2013 was to have a few garden beds in the part my yard between the driveway and my neighbor's property. The plan for the garden this year was to have three beds with corn, green beans, squash, and herbs. By the beginning of May, I had one bed with a handful of plants - mostly tomatos and pepper plants. I thought I was making good progress, but  another two weeks passed by before I was able to complete the latter two beds. Unlike the first bed that contains store bought plants, the second and third beds contain plants that were started from seed. The second bed contains squash plants that were started a few weeks earlier and some green beans from seed. The third bed contains corn and green beans. My parents have already threatened to steal corn and green beans from my garden. (Grrr...) In the first bed, I added some more tomato plants and a couple of basil plants. So the initial garden plan has been completed and I just have to tend the garden as the plants grow.

Starting seeds, part 2

I will not lie that the size of my garden has expanded beyond my initial plan. Part of this was due to the sad fact that the first set of seeds I started in late March/early April were no good to plant out because they had received too much light. The epicotyls of each of the seedlings were much too long and did not look healthy. This is part of the reason why I had bought plants for the first bed. That and I was impatient in having a fuller plant in the garden/  A few weeks before building the two latter beds, I had started some plants to plant in those beds. The result of the second try were a good number of seedlings; more seedlings that I had space to plant out, which left me with the problem of what to do with the extra seedlings.


The other reason why my garden plan expanded was the unplanned removal of the azalea bushes (wall) in front of our house. When we moved into the house I thought that they looked pretty, but after the blooms finished I didn't really like the way they looked. Also, the bushes were overgrown and I didn't want to work that much on them to trim them back and train them. So after talking with a coworker who offered to take them off my hands, the azaleas were gone. That left all of the bare spots in our yard to figure out what we were going to do.

Front walk way before and after

Beets, radishes, lettuce, and herb

Since I had extra seedlings, I figured, why not plant them in the front of the house. As Aaron would remind me, this decision was a classic case of mission creep. And the mission creep did not end there as I had also started a bunch of container gardens full of veggies and herbs too.

I'm really hoping to get some tasty produce out of my suburban experiment.

Progress on the garden...

Below are pictures showing the progress I've made on the garden.

With help from my dad, we were able to pull out most of the over grown burning bush and azaleas from the side yard next to the drive way. (Hubs was able to dig out the roots that didn't want to come out)

This year, I'm going to set up a few vegetable garden beds. I have one set up right now. It has tomato plants from the local garden center. I realize I initially said that I was going to go from seed, but 1) my plants got too much light and looked sickly and 2) I had feelings of garden inadequacy with my less than stellar seedlings.

So, I restarted seeds (tomatoes, herbs, squash) last week and will keep my fingers crossed that the seeds will take.

Oh the great experiment that is gardening.

Pulling out all of the over grown stuff

My blank slate!!

Veggie patch #1... More to come

I'm so ready for spring to get here.

On Monday morning, I (along with many others in the DC area) woke up to find snow on the ground. My first thoughts were "Really!?!?! Isn't it supposed to be spring! I am on spring break for Pete's sake!" Now, I know there have been plenty of people who have accused a certain poor groundhog of lying and deceiving the entire US.  But let's recognize that  weathermen and politicians have probably done worst than Phil in terms errant predictions.

The side yard where my vegetable garden will be.

While I was not able to do much towards planting or working on my vegetable garden on Monday, I luckily had worked on it over the weekend.

Before anything can be planted into the ground, I have to clear out stuff that is already there. Lucky for me, my dad has offered to help me up root these bushes once I've trimmed them down to a manageable size.

So... STEP 1: Clear out side yard: In progress.

Another thing that I needed to do is start some seeds so that after the last frost comes through, I'll be able plant out some seedlings and get a head start on growing plants.

Grow light set up

Lettuce seedlings!

The plants that are on my indoor starting list include lettuce, tomatoes, pepers, basil, and marigolds. I started some of those seeds this past weekend as well. While I was not expecting any seedlings until this Friday (after about 7 days), I had a happy surprise from my lettuce pot.

So, gardening goal is under way! More updates to come :-)

Ready to garden?

I'm armed with seeds, seed starting mix, starting pots, grow lights, and a couple "how to garden" books. The last frost is supposedly going to end in about a month, so this is the perfect time start some seeds indoors.

The outside still needs work, I have to clear a few bushes and prep the area where I will put the raised beds. I'll start that this weekend. :-)

If you want to know what I have to grow, I've got seeds for corn, tomatoes (two varieties), green beans, acorn squash, butternut squash, basil, and zucchini. I'll start the tomatoes, zucchini, and basil indoors. The winter squashes will start closer to when the beds will be ready, and I'll sow the beans and corn directly.

Hooray for getting closer to starting another goal for 2013!!