15 Steps for Disease Prevention in Your Garden

You have fewer tools for fighting diseases in your garden than for eliminating pests. You get a pest, you pick it off, hit it with insecticidal soap, go after it with natural elimination methods. With diseases, in many instances, your best bet is to to destroy the individual diseased plant. There are very few practical and effective methods to control of plant disease on an individual plant; however, removal of the diseased plant is effective control for your garden as an entirety.

Your first step in disease control is being able to recognize the disease and determine the identity of the pestilence. Always keep in mind that many fungal problems are not fatal and do not harm the production of the plant. Don’t panic at the first sight of yellow spots or a single yellow leaf on your plant. Look at the overall health of the plant. If it looks hearty and vigorous, let it sit for a spell. If your plant is withering and deteriorating very rapidly, you have a viral of bacterial pestilence and the plant should be destroyed.

In order to control disease in your garden, you must spend time with your garden. Look at your plants and notice changes in their appearance. Most problems with your plants will be caused by insects and not diseases. By doing research, paying attention, and gaining experience, you will learn the difference. Unfortunately, experience is another word for dying plants. I was listening to the radio the other day and the host of the garden show opined that you are not a gardener until you have killed a hundred plants. That is how you gain experience. So don’t worry, don’t be afraid, and start growing.

Unfortunately, not every disease has a unique set of symptoms. Many symptoms are causes by more than on plant plant disease. In any event, plant diseases can be divided into five broad categories: environmental, fungal, bacterial, viral, and nematode. The insidious diseases make things difficult for you because the symptoms that you see cannot be easily segregated by category. You will learn to distinguish between the diseases because some are more common than others and your experience from previous years will inform your response to the outbreak. You won’t get the necessary experience unless you get started. So while there is some overlap in the symptoms from the categories, don’t worry about it too much. Each type of pestilence mentioned above can be recognized by is symptom set.

If you are just getting started gardening, look to be beset by environmental diseases first. Those will be followed by fungal diseases. Bacterial, viral, and nematode disease are the least frequent visitors to your little plot of heaven.

Symptom identification is the most important step in combating plant disease in your garden. You have to recognize the symptom in order to diagnose and treat the problem. A common disease symptom that you should look for is yellowing of the leaves. Make sure that you observe which leaves are yellowing: all of them, just the young ones, leaf edges, between the veins of the leaf, old leaves only, irregular spots on the leaves, round spots on the leaves, dots, or mosaic patterns. Next check for brown areas on your leaves: the edges, the tips, brown spots on all leaves, brown sections on the leaves, or brown on the edge and in the middle. The other symptoms to look for are water soaked appearance, greasy appearance, plant mysteriously and unexpectedly up and dies, rotten leaves, rotten fruit, abnormal growth, wilting plant, and defoliation. In order to protect your plants from disease, you have to spend time with them. Get out in your garden and get your hands dirty.

While this article is too short to provide specific detail on on all diseases and their prevention and treatment, I can provide you with fifteen steps to help prevent disease in your garden plot. Remember that an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure. In order to have the healthiest garden possible, you should 1) build healthy soil, 2) use compost, 3)Plant disease resistant varieties of your plants, 4) Rotate your crops, 5) Use foliar spray, 6) Use Mulch, 7) Get rid of the transmission method, Water plants before noon, 9)Properly clean out your garden in the fall, 10) Sterilize your soil with solarization, 11) Use drip irrigation to prevent fungal infestation, 12) Keep your tools clean, 13) In order to avoid fungal disease spread, don’t work with your plants when they are wet, 14) Mow under your fruit trees and remove the clippings and fruit tree leaves to the compost pile, 15) Go outside, pay attention to your plants, garden, gain experience, and keep a garden journal!

If you have any tips, I’d love to hear from you!

Raised Beds and Wide Rows

So our backyard, when we moved in was largely cement and clay. I think that it was so horrific that I have no pictures of it. If I run across some, I’ll put them up here. In any event it is much better now. Last summer I tried growing plants, any kind of plant…but plants and puppies don’t mix very well.

So I had to build a fence to keep the dog out. Then I remember that the dirt in the back yard was clay over limestone…and then I remembered that small scale, super productive gardening was best done in raised beds with good dirt. Raised beds have many benefits. See the article on deep bed gardening here.

So I built the beds…and cheated some and had dirt brought in. The total cast was about, materials and dirt was about $350.00 US. Not too bad since I get to grow veg this year.

Three Different Places to get Fish Emulsion..Go Figure

So my tomato plants, which I planted too early [because I am a thrill seeker, impatient, and suffer from attention deficit disorder], are already mad. They tell me they need nitrogen. How did they tell me? You may be thinking that I am bit touched in the head. You know hearing the plants talk to me and all. No No No au contraire… the lower leaves were yellow. Easy diagnosis. First I looked at them in search of bugs…no bugs. So they must need nitrogen.

Being the good, diligent aspiring organic gardener that I am, off I went in search of fish emulsion. First my local hardware store (shout out to Hillsboro Hardware on 21st avenue in Nashvegas) tells me that they only carry the powdered now because the people in the Belmont Hillsboro complained about the smell. I complained that I wanted the stinky stuff.

Then, due to the children talking nonstop interfering with the successful operation of my synapses, we went to the big box of the despot. No Joy! Then, in a fit of inspiration, the daddy thinks of the All Seasons Garden and Brewing Center. The hippie dippy organic joint. The first time I tried to patronize the establishment, I could not find my destination. Another moment of inspiration later, Sprint Navigation has an animated map up and an annoying voice giving me lovely directions to my destination some 2.7 miles hence.

Oh joy, fish emulsion…click me!. It is stinky stuff but does provide the most accessible nitrogen for your plants. The concentrate goes far. I got a gallon for about $20.00 US.

My tomatoes look a bit happier today though you can still see the yellow from the nitrogen deficit.

The EPA and Pesticides

According the to United States Environmental Protection Agency, there are over 20,000 pesticides containing 620 active ingredients on the market in the US.  More than 1,000,000,000 (One billion) pounds of active ingredients in conventional pesticides are applied each year in the United States.  Thats over three pounds for every man, woman, and child who is a citizen of the United States.  That in itself is alarming.  Even more alarming is the government’s information on the potential health effects of pesticides.  I am quoting the EPA’s own FAQ here: “The health effects of pesticides depend on the type of pesticide.  Some, such as the organophosphates and carbamates, affect the nervous system.  Other may irritate the skin of eyes. Some pesticides may be carcinogens.  Others may affect the hormone or endocrine system in the body.”  Stay away from the commercially grown food!  Save money and eat healthy and – grow your own organic food!!

The EPA is in charge of our safety from pesticides.  They get a large helping hand from the manufacturers of the pesticides.  The EPA is charged with setting maximum levels of pesticides likely to be found in food.  That is not a typo, I took it straight from an EPA page…”maximum levels likely to be found in food”…not actually found in food, but likely to be found. “The EPA accomplishes this by requiring pesticide manufacturers to submit data that answer basic questions about what residues are present in foods and in what quantities.”  The manufacturers submit data regarding the residues of pesticides found on crops grown in the field when applied using the highest rate allowed by the product label.  So the manufacturer of the pesticide delivers the data to the EPA and the EPA decides on how much pesticide is okay for us to eat. I love the taste of orthophosphates in the morning! Do you trust the pesticide manufacturers with the safety of your food?  If not, the only way to make sure that our food supply is safer is to grow you own organic food.

The EPA also requires a battery of toxicity tests in laboratory animals to determine a pesticide’s potential for causing adverse health effects, such as cancer, birth defects, and adverse effects on the nervous system or other organs. Tests are conducted for both short-term (acute) and long-term (chronic) toxicity. For chronic effects other than cancer, laboratory animals are exposed to different doses of a pesticide to determine the level at which no adverse effects occur. This level is divided by an uncertainty or “safety” factor (usually 100) to account for the uncertainty of extrapolating from laboratory animals to humans and for individual human differences in sensitivity. The resulting figure, termed the Reference Dose, is the level of exposure that EPA judges an individual could be exposed to on a daily basis for a lifetime with minimal probability of experiencing any adverse effect. [Quoted from EPA Factsheet].

So let me get this straight, the EPA finds a pesticide that makes us sick and then they decide how much of that we can eat.  Who checks on the farms?  Who checks at the grocery store?  Anybody want some peanuts?  I am not saying that the EPA is bad.  They do a commendable job.  I think that we should be surprised that there are not more serious health problems and outbreaks of food related illness;but how many chronic illnesses and “adverse” health effects are the cause of pesticide exposure over the course of a lifetime?  Could neurological disorders be the result of  exposure to organophosphates and carbamates?  How would you know?  If you grow your own food, you know exactly what was put on it.  You know exactly what your children are eating!  What if you could save money growing your own organic vegetables at home?  You can! Read a book and go outside! Feed your children healthy food and lower your grocery bill. You can do it.  You just have to go out in the yard and get started!

Raspberries…Yummy!

Who doesn’t love raspberries? Rubus idaeus (red raspberries) and R. occidentalis taste good! Your best bet for growing raspberries is to transplant them. They should be planted in early winter or spring when the suckers are dormant. If you live in zone six or higher (read further south) you can plant in the fall. They should be planted two to three feet apart in rows that are four feet apart. If you use deep beds, you may plant three feet apart. The plant should be mulched about six inches deep to keep the roots warm in winter and cool in the summer.

Raspberries may be propagated by taking cuttings. Make sure to take your cutting from a cane (branch or stem) that did not produce fruit. The fruit producing stems die back after fruiting and cannot be used for propagation. If your cutting doesn’t root, it is most likely due to exhaustion from fruiting earlier in the season. Don’t use tired canes!

Raspberries like on inch of rain per week prior to fruiting and one and a half inches of water while fruiting. The water can be from rain or your watering system. Feed them with slow acting fertilizer early in the season and spray with the liquid seaweed extract three times during the growing season for the happiest berries. Happy berries taste better!

There are numerous pests that may afflict your berries. If your foliage curls, puckers, and turns yellow, and then is also stunted, you may have aphids. If there are ants on your bushes, they are attracted by the honeydew from the aphids. There will be clusters of aphids under the leaves. Dang pestilence. Be gone! They are the about the size of a pinhead and may be green, brown, or pink. They will be destroyed by insecticidal soap sprayed on them every two to three days until they are gone. The big concern from the aphids lies in the virus carrying properties. They bring the mosaic that can kill your plants.

If a cane borer comes a calling you can expect to see sudden tip wilting. Closer examination of your plant will reveal two rows of punctures about one inch apart at the tip of your cane. The adult beetle has deposited eggs in your cane and is killing your berry. You just have to cut off the wilted tips below the low row of punctures and burn up the beetle larvae. Nothing to it as long as you pay attention to your plants.

Japanese beetles will make your leaves look like skeletons of leave. The shiny green beetle is about a half an inch long and has copper colored wings. If you put up pheromone beetle traps at least fifty feet from your crops to lure the beetles away. If the traps can’t handle the infestation, the infestation won’t be able to handle pyrethrum. The pyrethrum will get rid of the infestation. Leave traps up id beetle infestation is regular in your garden spot

The raspberry root borer in an insidious foe. Your plant will break off easily at the base and show general lethargy and lack of vigor. You may often find the half inch grubs eating your plant in the crown of roots. Sometimes you and off the buggers by stabbing them with a wire; however the only surefire way to rid yourself of the pestilence is to cut the affect canes below the soil line and destroy them. Dang those bugs.

Whiteflies are another common garden pest that may affect your berries. The whiteflies honey dew encourages fungus growth on your leaves and weakens the plants. You can tell you have them if, when the plant is disturbed, it looks like dandruff is flying around your plant. Insecticidal soap applied daily for a few days will control the outbreak and send the whiteflies to an appropriate end.

Pay attention to your raspberries and take good care of them. Plant them where they are happy and protect them from evil. You will be rewarded with big, fat, juicy fruits! Raspberries are fun to grow, fun to pick, and even more fun to eat in jams, tarts, salads, cakes, breads, and even right off the plant. Plant some today!

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