1. Introduction:
In this section, we introduce the topic of plant diseases and the significance of effectively managing them to maintain a healthy garden. We can begin by highlighting Karen's experience in the Master Gardeners course, emphasizing the depth of knowledge gained from this intensive program. By framing the conversation around her journey to become more knowledgeable about gardening, we set the stage for an informative discussion on disease management.
2. Navigating Information Online:
Karen shares her frustration with finding reliable information online amidst conflicting sources. She offers a valuable tip she learned from her Master Gardeners course: adding "edu" to search queries to access credible university extension articles. This highlights the importance of discerning credible sources in an era inundated with information. By emphasizing the significance of accessing reputable resources, Karen underscores the importance of reliable information in effective disease management practices.
3. Leveraging University Extension Websites:
Gardners will find a wealth of information on their University Extension website. The best thing is that it will be specific to their region, which is valuable. YouTube videos and blogs are great, but not necessarily focused on your area of the country.
4. Understanding Plant Diseases:
Here, we provide an overview of the various types of plant diseases discussed in the conversation, including fungi, bacteria, and rust. Karen shares insights into common symptoms and early signs of plant diseases, drawing from her experience and knowledge gained from the Master Gardeners course. By breaking down the characteristics of different diseases, we equip readers with foundational knowledge to recognize and address potential issues in their own gardens.
5. Disease Management Strategies:
Karen emphasizes proactive measures such as pruning and sanitation practices as crucial components of disease management. She discusses the importance of maintaining good airflow and using mulch to prevent soil-borne diseases, drawing from her personal experiences and lessons learned. By highlighting practical strategies for disease prevention, Karen empowers readers to take proactive steps to safeguard their gardens against potential threats.
7. Practical Tips for Disease Prevention:
Karen offers practical tips for disease prevention, including spacing plants appropriately and monitoring for early signs of disease. She underscores the importance of maintaining a healthy garden ecosystem to promote plant resilience, drawing from her observations and discussions in the Master Gardeners course. By providing actionable advice, Karen equips readers with the tools they need to effectively manage plant diseases in their gardens.
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you're going to be educating us all on plant diseases. So I'll just sit here and have a supporting role today and listen to you and get educated. All
right, I did. I learned a lot in my last Master Gardeners course class. And I don't know if I mentioned it, but I am taking the Master Gardeners course here in Frederick County, Maryland. It's very intense. I'm learning a lot. It's so interesting. I just kind of felt like it was like something. I've been wanting to do it for a while, but I felt like the timing was right, it's something that just would help me gain some more knowledge. So there are several things that I did want to bring up base based on things we've already talked about for one and then other some other things that I learned. But remember, we were talking about our our deal with the crocus's we were gonna cook ourselves some saffron rice, it was really frustrating, because when I was searching for all this information, I kept finding conflicting information about which crocus is the right crocus. And it got me thinking, you know, I write a blog, other people write blogs. So that's all it is, is somebody just sharing their experiences and their opinions, and I'm sure that a lot of stuff I say, is not completely accurate, you know, on my blogs, but um, they're just blogs, you know, so I asked in my, in my class, how to navigate all this information that's out there. And I got a really good tip whenever you search for something that you want to know. And I actually I just did a search what causes blight, and tomatoes. But after you write in, you're typing your search, type edu at the end, and then hit return. And then the Google Gods will bring you to something that's really credible, you'll get a university extension article, you'll get something from some other summer agriculture, you'll get some from the government, you'll get some a government website, you get something really legitimate, and you'll get some real true information. So that was a really great tip. I'm, I'm not saying don't read my blog. Because we have some good tips, and some opinions. But if you want something that that's really crucial, like, if I ate this isn't going to kill me, that's, that's not a good, good thing to find out on somebody's blog. So I thought that was really helpful. I've been actually doing it some more. And, you know, if you're looking for information, take a spin around whatever your State's University Extension website is, there is so much information, we spent about half of a class just going through the website searching and looking for information. It's just phenomenal the amount of information on your extension website, and it will be information for you, right where you live, not, you know, for somebody else in some other state. So there's a ton of good information on our Extension website. It's worth a look every once in a while. So then, what what were we talking about diseases? Yeah, we're gonna be facing diseases. We had a class about plant diseases, about it was a lot of information about a lot of things, not just our vegetable gardens, but landscape plants, bushes, shrubs, trees, you know, they're always fighting diseases and we're always, you know, coming up against diseases. But the main thing that that they teach, and there's one guy at the State Extension office who really deals a lot with this and gives you know, writes a lot of the articles and teaches his main thing is pruning the first thing you can do is cut it out. And that's the usually the best course if you find some kind of disease, some kind of fungus or rust or bacteria. Once you see a lot of it, your plants pretty much doomed there's not a lot you can do.
So what should we be looking for in the early stages because you see once we see it is pretty much too late. So what would we be looking for, like
so with? Let's go through the different ones so so like with fungi, you've got downy mildew and powdery mildew and I've learned that powdery is on top of the leaf down, he's on the bottom of the lead.
happens on cucumbers. A lot of people get that with cucumbers and what's causing that
that is a fungus. And it's caused by wet, hot humid conditions like we have in our universe that's causing what was it on your tomatoes we were talking about? Light light on you NATO's lying to the potato on your squash leaves. And I've never been real diligent or vigilant or vigilant. Either word yeah, I've never been big on that. I just kind of ignore it. But me too. Yeah, I really should cut it out. Because what that is, it's a, you know, it's a it's a disease and it's just going to spread once it gets a hold. The first thing often that you'll see like with bacteria is you'll start seeing the little spot, little, little brown spot. And then if you see that just cut the leaf off. Most of the time your plants have enough leaves to you know, do photosynthesis, then since this is our time with all these words, today, big words today, but if you cut it off the first time you see it, you know, you'll stop the spread of it. One thing too I think we've all heard probably heard this. And it's important to keep a mulch everywhere, so that the disease doesn't get splashed up from the ground. Because yeah, you know, a lot of diseases, diseases that will be in the soil.
That's the one thing I do do is well, not mulch and so much, but I trim all my tomato leaves from the bottom. So that, you know, today doesn't splash up because James pyrithione Oh my god. Yeah. I learned that from him like a few years ago. Yeah. So it's
important. Yeah, printers, bottom leaves. Usually I'll go like, you know, start with 12 inches once it gets to that, yeah,
that height. A couple of them. A couple of them last year, I also, I prune quite a lot. So that it was um, but it looks so bad. Looks so unnatural. But I did do that with a few of them last year, because everybody was preaching that online, you know? Yeah.
And if I'm paying attention, I'll prune. You know, I'll keep pruning up, up as it grows. Now, usually around August, you know, you're just kind of tired. Oh, yeah. You know, you're just like getting the last little bit you can but yeah, everything succumbs Yeah,
it gets to a point where I'm like, okay, you know, it is what it is, I can't keep up with it. And the pruning, they grow back so quickly, like you prune it all down this week, especially my hot pepper plants. I feel like I'll sit there and prune it a week or two weeks, and it's full again, it doesn't look like you ever touched it right. So that you're
not hurting it at all. Yeah, it wants it wants to be cared for. One thing too, is get your plant started out right in the first place. Because a healthy plant resists disease. And if you see an unhealthy plant, you know, don't like I have to, you know, I have to be better at this because I want ever I want everything to survive and thrive and live and I can't even you know, pull out one little
seedling like an extra one you do it,
it's like no, it has to live. But if you have an unhealthy plant, just don't even bother with it, just cut it out and replace it if you still have time. Because it's not gonna, it's just not going to do well. It's not going to survive the things that nature throws at it. So the other one you see is the This one's easy as rust. If you have rust on your plants, I've never
seen Ross Do you have never seen rust on my plants mostly on flowers and
perennials, you'll see rust, okay, if you have any of that nearby, you want to cut that out too, because it's going to make its way to your garden. So you do have to kind of think of the whole ecosystem of your yard. Even if you're just focused on vegetable gardens, you know, you have to everything is part of the grand scheme. But once you see it, you can possibly use some sprays. But most of the time is too late. You know by that if it if it really gets a hold. And honestly, organic gardeners don't really encourage use of insecticides. It's really more for in agriculture and industrial, you know, that kind of agriculture, they have to use it if they want, you know, to not lose their whole crop to a disease or something. Well,
my friends tomatoes got infested with something last year. It looks so bad. It looked like there was fur all over the tomatoes, but and she went and got some kind of organic spray, and it cleared up like within a few days. It's crazy because it looks so bad. I didn't think there was any hope for it. Yeah,
what did she get? Wasn't a bacteria. No, it would have been a fungus. Probably if it's like for real Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Fungal spray. Well, that's
yeah, it was so bad. It looks so bad. Like I couldn't even believe what I was looking at. When she sent me the pictures of it. I was like actually cut off the diseased parts and spray the rest because I think she did cut some of it off. Yeah, she got some of that would be a
step. If you really want to save that baby. That would be a good step. They can hear that
Okay
so it's funny, do you have a day of listening to somebody listening to somebody on YouTube? And like her kid was like, bang in and do it and she's trying to ignore and she's trying to keep herself. We've had laughing but and then he's going like even louder it was so funny. It happens, right? It's life when life goes on even though we're blogging. Yeah,
he's Yeah, he's our he's. So I had a groundhog problem talking about pest a groundhog problem for several years and the groundhog terrorized the entire neighborhood because several of us here have gardens. And we were like, at our wits end, had traps and you know, we all were trying to get to this thing i Well, we got a dog. And last summer, we got him in July, and one of the first times he was out. He, the groundhog was just kind of waddling his way to my garden, and my dog chased him out out of the garden. And he came with it with an inches of the little, little demon until it got through the neighbor's fence. Oh, and I haven't had seen a groundhog since he hasn't come back. That's not no, he lived under the neighbor's pool house right on the other side of the fence. They haven't seen him either. Wow. Well, it was a her I think, because she was here one year. And then the next year, we had three more her babies. Okay, it's miserable. But um, so that was last year, we'll see. My neighbor still had trouble with the groundhog. So in you know, they don't have a dog. But as long as we have the dog, so that was a really, you know, that was an interesting adventure. Not that I'm advising everybody to do get a dog. But if you're a dog lover, why not? So what else that Tyria Oh, bacteria will usually show up as little black spots. And the funny thing, they're usually they're usually around. And they'll usually just start out as a little circle, and then they'll just start to spread. And sometimes they'll be small and you can't tell what they are. But once you start to see the circles grow, you'll know Oh, that's a bacteria. And that's, again, that's airborne too. Sometimes, it can be by bat unclean practices. Like you should always wash your pots and wash your tool. Yeah, wash your. And Pat. In fact, every time you prune, yeah, clean in between prunings. That's
right, because you transfer the disease. That's what James whatever his name is, says also, a
lot of us do our damage to ourselves. Yes. Of our practices. Yeah. And always everything should be watered from the ground. And, you know, all of that really just minimizes the spread. And then and then pruning. And then I guess evidently, some sprays work. I'm not sure I'm keen on it. Um, yeah, you know, let them go. But so that was our lesson most of our lesson on now. They went into all kinds of, you know, the Latin names for things and go like way over my head, but not what I was really interested in.
Now, is that why cucumber plants tend to dry up. They don't last very long. So you have to do a couple of farms. Except, yes, successions of cucumbers. So when it goes brown like that, is is that because it has some kind of disease, because that's what happens with tomatoes. But tomatoes will still produce even with the blight, I found. My cucumbers just tend to they just give up. Yeah, they just give up. Yeah,
that can be a fungus, or it can be bacteria. And again, you can prune those, their leaves are really large. And I think like squash, you know, that really large leaves. So it just kind of keeps it from getting the air circulation it needs. That was another thing that I'm going to do differently this year. I've always planted my tomatoes too close together. And I think I'll just keep them pruned. You know, I have good intentions. If I keep them pruned. I can get this many more. But I don't keep them pruned like I should and then you don't get the airflow then you get the humidity and you get the diseases. I have
my tomatoes all combined and they start Yeah, leaves, the branches are hanging over that one and stuff like that. I get that
way towards the end and then you know, you can't find and in fact, so many times I get into there to prune something and I accidentally cut off a green tomato and
I've done that too. So
this year 18 inches apart. I'm just doing it so they don't um You know, have that problem with lack of airflow. In fact, everything. I think I'm gonna do that I always planted my butternut squash just I mean, my spaghetti squash was too close together, because I would train them up, you know, a trellis and I would try to spread them out on the trellis, but they went into depth just growing into each other. I've
never done any type of squash. Yeah, I'm not a big squash person.
Squash are so difficult around here. I find really hesitant the the mildew.
I feel like people can't give away enough squash. People who grow. Yeah,
the zucchini. Yeah, so I'm not really a fan of that too much. But the other squash? The I love the spaghetti squash and the ache. I liked the acorn squash, you know the hard.
Yeah, I like butternut squash. Yeah. But they're difficult
because of the diseases. And because of the squash bugs and the squash vine borer, I've always had trouble with those. And you, you have to be really vigilant. And last year, I tried, I went out I kept a bucket of soapy water right in the middle of the garden. And I would go out and spec and inspect every day. Now I would hand pick them off and throw them into the bucket. And it helped it did help for a while. But after a while it there were just too many I couldn't keep up. So this year, I'm not going to grow squash, I'm going to give it a rest. I think we all just we all talked in our class too, that the first year you grow something, it's going to be great. It's gonna be wonderful. But it's like, at the end of that season, the particular pest that wants that plant will show up. And then by next year, you'll just have an infestation. The second year always happens. So I thought if I just take a year off, the squash bugs will go to somebody else's gone. Forget about me. And then next year I'll try again, but I don't I don't know what to do about that. Except just keep fighting until you know. Usually we give up by the end of this season, right? Yeah, usually it's August for me. Yeah, yeah,
I give up. I'm like, okay, yeah, whatever. I stop pruning, it's there all everywhere. And I just like, just grab what tomatoes I can whenever I can. So
now you also once you do prune them need to dispose of them not put them in your in your compost. And they really should be either thrown in the trash, you know in a plastic trash bag. Or you can burn them if you have a burn barrel. If you can burn a burn pit. We will burn them. You burn your homes. Yeah.
I do have a fire pit out there. Yeah, we do. Okay, that's nice to sit around in the evening. Yeah,
