July Garden Report - Procrastination and powdery mildew

Yesterday I worked very hard in the garden. I had to.

There were two problems. One was that I had a lot of weeds. Without having done careful measurements, it seems like I should not go more than two weeks without weeding. Let a few things come up unexpectedly though, and I do. There were a lot of weeds and they needed to be rooted out.

That is backbreaking work. Bending over to pull at them is physically hard, but getting down in the dirt is hard in a different way, and there is really no getting around that. I have thought maybe the answer is to pull a weed every time I am over there, but I want to get the roots, and it is easier to do that with some sort of tool, even if that is just a small spade. Since I am currently not gardening on my own land, I don't store tools there, but need to bring them. Also, it is helpful for me that most of my trips there are not lengthy. So for now, having times when I go to weed seems to be correct.

That was dirty and sweaty and physically straining, but I got it done before breakfast and that would have been a pretty good deal if not for the other problem. I also had powdery mildew.

If the weeding was worse because it was overdue, being on the ball with other things would have been even more important here. There have been three things I have been planning on doing and putting off. One is planting the new lettuce seeds and the rest of the pea seeds. For the peas it said late July, so I was not feeling too worried there, and with the lettuce I just wanted to be a bit past the summer solstice.

Those aren't really late, but I wanted to do another application of plant food before I planted them, and I have been meaning to do that for about a month. It is more of a thing that you can do than that you have to do, but I am starting to think that the tomatoes are showing some signs of needing more nourishment, and maybe if I had gotten to that earlier they would look perkier.

The other thing I wanted to do was to spray the plants with milk. This is a purely preventive thing, to hold off powdery mildew. Much like blossom end rot, powdery mildew is something that we can get in this area and that we treat with calcium. Instead of crushed egg shells, you spray a mixture of milk and water. I did not have a spray bottle, and I had been meaning to get one but just hadn't. Suddenly, there were white spots on my leaves everywhere. It is particularly an issue for squash.  Crookneck, zucchini, and pumpkins may be only three of my plants, but they are all the most prolific. It was everywhere.

Still like blossom end rot, powdery mildew is not necessarily fatal. You can still eat the plants, but they may not taste as good, and if you are gardening and not getting vegetables that taste good, why are you doing it? Also, I blame myself.

Also, it would be a bad idea to apply more plant food now because that will make the powdery mildew stronger, and holding back the feeding holds back the additional planting. This makes me blame myself even more.

Therefore I was not done with the garden after weeding. I went shopping because I needed to anyway, but I could not find a spray bottle. My sisters got one on their errands. I was quite tired already, but it needed to be done. I also could not find the small trimmers, so I went with scissors.

I mixed up a solution that was 2/3 milk and 1/3 water and loaded it in the spray bottle. Taking it and the scissors to the garden, I began trimming the infected leaves. It took a look time.

It was like the weeding with additional bending, stooping, sweating, and the crookneck squash leaves are a bit prickly. There was more to do than with the weeding. The sign that they talk about is white powdery residue on the leaves, but I think I saw green powdery residue on the stems, and you can't uproot the stems and still have your plants. After lots and lots of trimming, I sprayed.

I don't know if that will help. The spray is for prevention, not cure. However, I feel like it won't hurt. Getting rid of the diseased leaves is what you are supposed to do, and that will allow more sunlight at the stems anyway. The next days are supposed to be pretty warm and dry, so that may help. I am going to do a second application of the milk spray tomorrow night.

I don't know how it will come out. I would like to see my plants flourishing, but again, this should not kill them. If nothing else, I have learned how to do some things, along with a better understanding of why to do them, and when.

This was supposed to be a learning year.