Powdery Mildew

A delightful little fungus called powdery mildew has graciously decided to descend upon my garden in these final days of the growing season. The plants affected, members of the cucurbit family, include my zucchini, yellow squash, and the pumpkins.

The infection tends to occur when conditions involve a combination of high humidity around the plant and water that collects on the leaves and is not dried off in a timely manner. Warm days and cool nights (typical Pacific Northwest conditions) encourage its growth. For an idea of what the infection looks like, imagine someone coated the leaves of your plant with a fine dusting of flour, or the first glimmering frost of winter to come has settled upon their normally green surface. Here's a glimpse of the affected yellow squash:
Not a pretty sight

Had I arrived at this plant sooner, I would probably have had a good shot of containing the fungus. By this point the plant is almost entirely covered in the dusty, white spores. The best treatment is of course prevention; growing in as sunny a spot as possible, not crowding the plants to allow adequate ventilation, and, even when the disease arises in spite of following these guidelines (as it did for me) eliminate the infected regions as soon as they are noticed.

With the exception of a few new leaves still green with new growth, this plant looks pretty sickly. Though it's late in the season, it may have a chance to produce a few more fruits, so I decided to perform a drastic surgery to try to eradicate the powdery mildew. My tool of choice: a sharp pair of scissors.

As I said, a pretty drastic procedure, but the infected leaves seem to be dealt with. As the season goes on, I will continue to monitor the plant to check for the return of the mildew, but for now it should be safe.

Urban Grown roots

While I'm still on the "featuring urban gardens" kick I thought I'd include a couple of pictures of the garden where this all got started. From the time I was a young child, I helped my parents with their modest vegetable garden, planting seeds, weeding, and (especially) eating tomatoes from the vine. Eventually I earned my own plot next to the compost pile. I believe it measured about 5 feet square. The rest is, as they say, well, whatever. Anyway here are some shots of my parents' garden from about a week ago. I'm sure it's grown substantially since then. In the foreground are peas, followed directly by broccoli, bush beans, zucchini, lettuce and carrots (hidden by the zucchini), and way in the back, an artichoke plant.

Against the south-facing garage wall is a row of tomato plants. The plants receive direct watering from a simple drip irrigation system my dad rigged up to deliver water straight to the base of the plant. Using a five gallon bucket and a length of pvc pipe with small holes drilled at equidistant intervals, he can give each plant an equal amount of water by simply filling the bucket. The system does the rest. He usually fills the bucket and leaves the hose trickling (so that the bucket remains full but does not overflow) for about 15-20 minutes so that the plants receive a thorough soaking.

Squash and Potatoes

Dug up the first mound of purple potatoes this afternoon. Not a bad haul considering I took so long to actually begin mounding the plants. I imagine if I'd done so earlier, or if our soil was more loamy, the harvest would have been greater. Still they turned out to be much bigger than I'd hoped, and who can beat that color?

Also picked the first zucchini and yellow squash. I'm going to my girlfriend's annual family barbecue later today so I figured I'd contribute something from the garden to the grill. Kabobs anyone?

Still the garden grows...

I returned from my week-long east coast jaunt late Wednesday night to find everything in the garden very much alive and well. A special thanks to everyone who helped while I was away. The volunteer sunflowers are over 8 feet tall and showing no signs of stopping their skyward ascent anytime soon. Entering the cloche in any fashion other than an army crawl verges on the impossible. Rattlesnake beans are fruiting readily, though the scarlet runners seem to have been spottily pollinated; each flower cluster only managed to produce two or three beans out of around fifteen blooms. Although one bean is nearly ten inches long.

As I understand it, frequent harvesting of beans and peas, tomatoes, zucchini, pretty much any fruiting vegetable, will encourage the plant to produce more fruit. In the case of peas and some beans, picking the pod when it's a bit on the young side will ensure it is tender (and delicious).

Quinoa continues to thrive. According to the seed package the plant was to reach a height of four feet; this one is over six.

The first zucchini fruits appear.

An updated photo of the garden's growth since last week.