POWDERY mildew is hitting early this year - but can be fixed.
THE supply of vegetables and fruit looks likely to be impacted by shortages caused this year thanks to the rain. And that’s understandable, for fruit and many vegetables, bees are needed and they don’t operate well while it’s as wet as it has been, while at the same time, soggy soil has made growth that much harder. It is very early in the season for plants like tomatoes and courgettes to have powdery mildew – but the rain and the heat have provided perfect humid conditions for this unwelcome fungal condition. The best way to treat this is to mix a litre of water with a teaspoon of baking soda and spray the plant well. Some like to split the water content to a matching amount of milk, but with this way, the baking soda is a necessity. You can also use an organic fungicide that contains sulphur as the active ingredient. This can be used as a preventative measure as well as treatment for existing powdery mildew. Remove any of the dead or dying foliage and make sure when you are watering, that you do so at soil level, not on the leaves themselves. The other sticky point is to be careful how often you fertilise. While tomatoes for example, are heavy feeders, the sudden new growth is more susceptible to powdery mildew, so while treating for this, ease off on the fortnightly feed until the weather dries out. You can fix it if you catch it early enough, but if not treated, powdery mildew will take all the nutrition from the plant and eventually kill it. Sometimes looking at the long-range forecast when you are ready to plant helps – above all, plants like this need plenty of sunshine, so being positioned in a warm sunny area will always be a help when it comes to preventative, rather than curative action. In the meantime, when it comes to bees, make sure you plant companion flowers in your garden. The best examples are lavenders, calendula, marigold, sunflowers, poppies, cosmos, hollyhocks, fox gloves, echium, clover, and nasturtiums. You can also plant comfrey, dahlias, echinacea, geraniums, aquilegia, and the beautiful gladioli.
