Powdery Mildew VI
After all the leaves had been pruned away from our infected zucchini, new leaves grew quickly, but the fruit that was already growing seemed to disappear… So we pruned away all the whithered and moldy fruit too, and continued spraying leaves and stems with baking soda / soap mix, and this morning we harvested the first nice proper zucchini. Looks like for us, the baking soda / soap mix saved the plants.
Here is the recipe again, for 1 gallon of water:
- 4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp soap (we used dish liquid)
6 Comments»
Jann
26. July 2008 | 16:02 h
Rose, thanks so much for the running commentary — it really helps to have somebody’s actual experience!
Rose
28. July 2008 | 13:25 h
Great, we are glad to be of assistance
We are still pruning away the occasional mildewy leaf and are still spraying about 2 times a week, but our zucchini are bearing a lot of fruit all the same, so for us, the baking soda /soap mix worked.
Thanks for commenting.
Rose
Wayne
31. July 2008 | 14:38 h
Thanks for posting this. With several days of humidity and thunderstorms, we found mildew a problem on our zucchini, squash, and pumpkins as well. My children and I have begun spraying using the formula you found.
Now, I don’t suppose you have any easy solutions for squash vine borers, do you?
Rose
31. July 2008 | 22:01 h
Wayne,
In fact, I do, given that you are unwilling to “nuke” the bugs with insecticide.
I just read about squash bugs in Countryside Magazine, and looked up the squash vine borer online too and the advice I got is the same and indeed very easy:
Plant new squash now, as far away from the infected squash as possible.
The adult squash vine borers have laid their eggs by now, that is, by the end of July, so the new squash has a good chance of surviving at least long enough to bear a lot of fruit.
Generally speaking, the advice I got from Countryside Magazine was to plan on planting squash in succession in different parts of the yard, so that, when one patch succumbs to the squash vine borers or squash bugs, the next patch should be yielding its fruit until it succumbs too etc etc. This way you can eat squash all season long despite the bugs.
Just incidentally: Since praying mantises showed up in our garden, we stopped using even our nicotine-garlic-red pepper flake solution against flea beetles and decided to simply let nature sort things out.
Rose
Wayne
1. August 2008 | 16:22 h
Excellent idea. I will plant another rotation of squash this very weekend. Thanks!
Rose
1. August 2008 | 17:20 h
Any time, we are happy to be of help