Common Garden Problems & Solutions

I just keep saying,

“Let the Hunger Games Begin!”

Why?

Because growing all your own food makes you hungry
Because growing a garden is sometimes a Battle
Because I must win this war against the insects and diseases
Because if I lose the battle and don’t harvest any food I will be hungry

This year is WAR

The gloves are OFF

I won’t be DEFEATED

The squash bugs are going DOWN

The Powdery Mildew must be ATTACKED

There is no place for blight in my life right NOW

I NEED food.

If you’re scratching your head about the whole “hunger” thing…. I am on a 101 day mission to grow all my food. Yup. No stores. No groceries. No Farmers Markets. No CSA’s. No roadside stands. I’m growing what I’m eating. If you want to be enlightened:

Homesteaders Food Challenge – What it is
Headaches, cravings, cooking & starvation – Week 1 Survival
Can I Grow All My Own Food – A Diet is Born – Week 2
Never Diet Again – Weight Loss, Sugar Detox & Finding your Ideal weight – Week 3
One Month – No preservatives, no additives, no artifical ingredients, no sugar, no GMOs, nothing but homegrown goodness – Week 4
What country is your food from? – Week 5

This is why this years garden is pretty important. It’s my food.

Here’s 5 of My Most Common Garden Problems & Solutions

Garden Problem #ONE: Powdery Mildew

If your cucumber plants look like mine and are already showing all the signs of powdery mildew (Thanks to all the rain) it may be too late.

The key to keeping powdery mildew under control:

Make sure plants have enough air. Damp, moist conditions will create an environment conducive to mildew
Water early in the day. This way your plants won’t be wet or damp during the night.
Avoid over head watering. Water the ground where the roots are, not the leaves.
If you suspect a mildew problem is beginning use an organic anti-fungal spray.

It is to spray every 7 days or after rain.

What do I spray?

Neem oil. Its organic. It’s an insect repellent and it keeps things like mildew under control. Follow the directions on the bottle. It is good to add a little Dawn Dish Soap to the Neem Oil Mixture to help it stick to the plants… the Dawn also repels & kills some bugs. Be sure to read the directions – too much dish soap will burn plants.

I know there are more powerful mildew prevention methods out there, but I’m gonna feed these cucumbers to my babies, so I don’t want any chemicals on them.

I have the most problem with mildew on my cucumbers. Always have.

The fabulous thing about cucumbers is that they germinate and produce so quickly that you can usually get 3 separate plantings in each season.

If your cucumbers look terrible and are on the brink of death – just stick some more seeds in the ground – you’ll have another crop of cucs in a few weeks.

NOTE: Be sure to sow the next crop of cucumbers far away from your current plants. If they are too close, the mildew infected plants will happily share the mold.

Garden Problem #TWO: Squash Bugs

Oh how I hate you, Squash bug.

I will tell you that squash bugs no longer take over and kill my entire garden. They are pretty easy to manage as long as you know what to do.

You don’t need to spray. You don’t need chemicals. You don’t need powders. You don’t need anything but some Dawn Dishwashing Soap.

Dawn Dish Soap is all you need to get rid of Squash Bugs

Not kidding. The squash bugs will laugh at the harshest, strongest, most toxic chemical on the planet – but douse them in a little soap and they roll over and die.

Just fill a spray bottle with some water & add about 1/4 cup dawn to it & mix. Now, go to the squash, zucchini, pumpkin, gourd, cucumber patches & spray the little critters. There are few things as satisfying as watching squash bugs roll over and die.

If you are having some trouble locating the little monsters, just water the plants. Focus on the roots – this is where they like to hide. When everything gets a nice watering the squash bugs will all climb up the stems onto the leaves to get away from all the moisture – when you see them come running – annihilate them. Squirt! Squirt! Squirt!

Squash bug death courtesy of Dawn Dish Soap

Now that mommy and daddy squash bugs are dead – it’s time to kill their offspring.

Check the undersides of leaves for orange eggs. These are the squash bug spawns. They must go. I know people who just rub them with their fingers and squish all the eggs….. but…. eeew. I’m still a girl and that’s gross. I rip off the leaves that have squash bug eggs on them & toss them far far far away from my garden. I don’t want any baby squash bugs finding their way back to the gourds.

I do my squash bug seek-and-destroy mission a couple times a week. This really seems to keep them under control and I get to eat zucchini bread.

WARNING: Dish soap can burn plants. After spraying all the squash bugs, water your plants well to rinse off the dish soap left on the leaves.

Garden Problem #THREE: Japanese Beetles

Japanese beetles love my peas, beans and sunflowers!

Ugh – the Japanese Beetles are out in droves this year. I have never seen so many, and NOTHING will make them go away.

I have taken a “if you can’t beat ’em, leave ’em” approach this year. I have some horrible beans growing in my garden that I hate, so I am letting the beetles have them.

Everything else is getting a regular coat of Neem Oil to deter the little beasts.

Garden Problem #FOUR: Cabbage Worms

By far, my worst enemy. Oh good golly those stinking, yellow butterflies need to all die. Arrg. I haven’t yet discovered how to get the butterflies to move off my farm, but I have managed to murder all their children.

2 Words:

Diatomaceous Earth.

This, people, is a miracle. It does all sorts of amazing things including removal of disgusting, wormy poop off my cabbage goods.

problems 9

This stuff is astonishing. This stuff works. This stuff won’t hurt you (just don’t inhale it).

What is Diatomaceous Earth (DE)?

It’s actually a fine powder made from diatoms – which are fossilized phytoplankton.

DE has a negative ionic charge – which makes it great at reducing parasites in chickens. It’s rich in silica (good for your hair skin, bones, teeth & nails). It’s crazy hard (which makes it great for facial scrubs & tooth pastes).

Some places people use (food grade) Diatomaceous Earth:

In their homes to get rid of bed bugs & fleas
In Chicken coops to keep bugs out
In homemade toothpastes & facial scrubs
In the garbage or refrigerator to remove odors

Chinese cabbage filled with holes – thanks to the cabbage worms

In short, DE is amazing. There are 2 types of DE available. The food grade is safe for pretty much everything. The “filter grade” you do not want to smear on your skin or breath into your lungs.

In the garden, the filter grade will eliminate all your cabbage worm issues – just don’t inhale it. 🙂

Like I said, I have not yet been successful in getting the yellow butterflies (yes, they are the enemy pooping out cabbage worm eggs all over your broccoli) to leave my farm. If you figure that one out, please let me know.

But I have managed to control the damage from their eggs.

I focus my DE application at the base, stems and arms of the plants (where the eggs typically are laid)

I focus my DE sprinkling on the arms and base of my plants. When the little, cabbage-worm boogers hatch from the egg-slime and morph into green worms the white powder gives them the business. I’m not sure where they went -I just know that I’m not eating green worms anymore.

Garden Problem #FIVE: Tomato Fungus (Blight, spots)

My life has been filled with an off and on battle with Tomato Blight. There are 2 varieties of blight.

Early Blight
Late Blight

They both stink. They both kill your tomato plants if not treated. Here in Kentucky we enjoy late blight. I suppose it could be worse – I could have both.

The good news is that I have a solution.

Tomato Blight or fungus has an easy solution that works 99% of the time (for me).

Move the tomatoes.

Problem solved. To see how I did it go here.

If you can’t move them. Or it’s too late to move them. Or it’s too late to plant a new crop. Or they’re already established and dripping with green tomatoes, but the blight is showing it’s ugly head on the bottom of your plants – Here’s what I do:

To Stop Blight:

If it’s just one infected plant – rip it out of the garden & toss it far far far far away (preferably bag it & send it out with the trash). You don’t want to mess around with blight or let it take up roots in your soil. This disease will produce great-great-grandchildren to infect your future tomato plants for the next 45 years. Trust me, you don’t want tomato blight on your farm.
If it’s not just one plant, but your entire crop has spots on the bottom branches – Get all the infected branches off the plant and out of the garden & gone for good (burn, bag or remove completely). You want to remove this funk from your farm and garden.
Do not touch infected plants and then touch a healthy plant -you can spread the disease.
Don’t work with or harvest tomatoes when the plants are wet or damp – this can spread mold spores more easily.
If over-crowding is an issue, move some of the plants or remove them to get more air flow going.
Do not add top soil to your garden & think you alleviated the blight – it’s probably still in there underground somewhere.
Once the infected branches are gone – you must spray the plant to stop the disease from coming back. I spray with a baking soda spray. To make it just add 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp dish soap to 1 quart of water. Shake well and pour into a spray bottle. Be careful, baking soda will kill the blight, but too much can harm your plants.
Respray every 7 days.

To prevent blight in the future:

Water early in the day so the plant is not wet during the evening. Cool air & moisture is a perfect environment for late blight.
Give them plenty of room. Space tomato plants so that air can circulate around them.
Buy seedlings from a trusted source or start your own seeds (how I start seeds here). I have brought blight home from the nursery in the past.
Keep your tomato plants off the ground by using cages or other system. How I build tomato cages here. How I stake tomatoes here.
Remove all the branches near the ground at the bottom of the plant. Branches near or touching the ground are most likely to remain damp and encourage mold (just what the blight spores want).
At the end of the year remove all your tomato plants, branches, tomatoes, leaves, stems and roots from the garden. Put in a bag and dispose of immediately.
If any volunteer tomato plants come up (and you have a history of blight) remove them.
Mulch your tomato plants with straw. This will keep your tomato plants from coming in contact with the soil (where the mold spores live).

The great thing about tomatoes is that they are constantly producing new growth off the top of the plant. Even if the bottom half of my tomatoes are dead, brown and pathetic, the tops are always green, lush and making more tomatoes.

Blight-Free Tomatoes