You've tended your garden faithfully. You've bemoaned all the rain and cold of an extended early Spring, So much rain fell in Metro Vancouver, it broke a record set in 1956. This forced you to delay planting your warm weather crops, like tomatoes, peppers and squash. At that time you resigned yourself to just enjoying what you could grow. |
And then, Mother Nature, always wonderful, but sometimes, we have to say, quite capricious, decided if we’d grumbled about the rain, she’d give us a dry spell. From that day on, we've had no rain except for a few drops here and there.
Too much and too little
The warm weather veggies, with their sparse drip irrigation systems have managed to somehow thrive.
Have you noticed?
I decided this year to try an unorthodox cure as soon as I saw the first tiny white patches on the leaves. It's so simple and has been so successful I feel compelled to share it with you.
What to do
I want to emphasize you need to be very vigilant. I seriously doubt this would work if you let the powdery mildew actually spread, because it devastates your plants so quickly. It doesn't actually spread from plant to plant, so that's not a worry.
I tend to get it on squash and roses, but it's worth keeping a eagle eye out for it. Enough squash are ripe now that I'm not going to worry about keeping the leaves nice and green much longer. But it's been a good experiment.
As usual, thanks for reading, and I'm wishing you a great weekend ahead, with special thoughts to those of you in Florida.
Vicki