Well, the accursed white mold is back this year on my zukes. (I took a leaf into the local organic farm in a zip lock and they identified it as white powder mold.)
They local organic farm said to cut off the badly infected leaves at the stack and spray the rest with neem oil once a week at dusk.
They also said no sky watering, which I don't do anyway.
These plants seem to have no natural defense against the stuff.
Any other words of wisdom? (I need to keep things organic.)
Same problem here under the redwoods, and is spreading to my cukes. Soon it will get my tomatoes. Black Beauty Zucchini is resistant to powdery mildew, but tastes like cardboard. What can I say? When the mildew comes, you know that the season is coming to a close. I hope you enjoyed your garden.
Poop. The Neem oil seems to be helping. We had a thunderstorm yesterday, which provided nitrogen sky water and watered in all the ash from the Rim Fire. So, keep fingers crossed. As a wise man once told me (you), welcome to agriculture.
Where most organic gardeners use a baking soda, soap and oil solution, milk may be substituted to combat the unwanted fungus.
Preparing a Milk Solution and Spraying Schedule
Thecorrect dilution and spraying schedule for garden plants depends on the situation and takes some trial and error.
A milk fungicide solution can rangefrom 1 part milk to 9 parts water, to a strong, milk-only solution. A 1:1 dilution may work for a week, but a 1:8 solution requires spraying every 3 or 4 days.
Skim milk may work better than whole milk, as the higher fat milk may cloga sprayer; even reconstituted powdered milk works.
Uses for Milk Fungicide
Milk was originally used in the garden to treat powdery mildew on squash plants. It isnow alsocommonly used on flowers such as rudebekia (Black-eyed Susans) and Begonias to cure powdery mildew.
Milk has alsobeen used to cure Botrytis on a Cyclamen houseplant. This was applied full strength every morning (leftover breakfast milk). Rotten leaves were picked away and the plant pulled through with no more Botrytis.
Black spots and rust on roses can be controlled but not cured with milk. Fortunately, milk can prevent the spread of these fungi to other plants and new leaves. This can be very useful when bringing home a plant from the nursery and finding a black spot.
or
home made fungicide It consists of the mixture 2 tbs baking powder (baking soda), 1 tbs non-concentrated dishsoap and 1 tbs vegetable oil/ liter.
or
Fungicide for Mildew and Black Spot
1 tsp. baking soda
1 litre water
1 tsp. soap flakes Dissolve baking soda in 1 litre of warm water.
Add soap flakes to help solution cling to leaves. Remove infected leaves from plant, then spray top and bottom of remaining leaf surfaces to control spread of the disease.
Be sure to water at the roots, and not over the plant and leaves - if the leaves get wet constantly, this will spread fungus.
There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder. ~ Alfred Austin
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