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Old 11-01-2005, 06:09 PM
simy1
 
Posts: n/a
Default Last year, fungus fungus everywhere

If you have a wet summer, plant cabbage, greens, beets, celery, favas,
peas, potatoes. Whatever will take the weather. As you say, there is
little you can do. I live in a warmer zone than you (Zone 5.5), and I
have all but given up on eggplants, I am giving a last chance to
peppers this summer, and the racoons have counseled me to give up the
strawberries. I am dissatisfied with the tomatoes and zucchini, this
place just does not have tomato weather (reliably) in the summer.

But under the tunnels right now I am picking every week buckets of
hardy greens, and my siberian garlic is the best of the best. You have
to adapt. Cool season veggies have a lot to offer. More nutrients, more
production per square foot, more medicinal value, a harvest that
extends to Thanksgiving even without cover.

wrote:
Hi all,

I live in Zone 4 - Northern VT. Last year was not a good year for my
garden. We had a very wet, cold rainy summer and the garden rarely

had
a chance to dry out. Hence the fungus thrived - my tomatoes all but
keeled over from blight, the strawberries were covered with gray

mold,
the lilacs lived under a sheath of powdery mildew. Basically the
fungus family had a field day and there was little I could do. Baking
soda spray wouldn't touch it. Copper sulfate didn't do much for it.

Hoping that this summer will be a bit dryer. I'm not entirely an
organic gardener, I am a chemist so I make my own decision knowing
what I do about chemicals, but I don't use too many commercially
manufactured pesticides or fungicides. I rotate crops every year, and
I keep the diseased plants out of the compost and soil as much as
possible. I plan to use a plastic mulch this year to keep the soil
from splashing up onto the tomato plants. Can anyone give me any

other
advice in terms of preparing my fungus infested soil?

Thanks much.