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Old 17-11-2011, 05:06 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Default Taking a year off, diseases, what to do?

Steve Peek wrote:
songbird wrote:
Steve Peek wrote:

....
Spray with copper, start early and spray often. I've had very good
success
on my heirloom tomatoes with this method.


copper is a poison to many creatures.
i would not advise this at all.


All metals are poisonous in extreme amounts. I believe copper is still
listed as organic by OMRI (organic materials research institute).


copper is poisonous in small amounts to
some critters. please read up about it
before suggesting it as a frequent fungal
spray.

spraying often as a preventative is
going to cause it to build up in the soil.
in time some will run off or soak in to
the water table. if the person you
recommend this to is near the ocean it is
even worse as to the amount of harm even
a small amount can do (Boston is near
the ocean).

just because some institute lists it
doesn't mean it's suitable for frequent
and general use.

if everyone in the midwest used a lot
of copper it would severely damage the
Gulf ecosystem (even more than the
dead zone already is doing).


fungal problems can be controlled in
many other ways that don't involve
poisons.


tomatoes are not greatly suited for wet
and cold climates. eastern seaboard USoA can
get some cold storms. if you are going to
grow tomatoes in that area grow short season
and smaller sized firm fruit varieties and
accept that losses will happen. later in the
season get the fruit off the vine before it
gets damaged by frost. etc.

when the plant isn't particularly suited,
be prepared to accept some losses from time
to time. spraying preventatively is an
admission that the plant or conditions are
unsuitable. wasteful and damaging in the
longer term. certainly you cannot keep
spraying copper on your gardens and expect
it to not cause trouble eventually. some
plants are metal accumulators. do you know
which of these are? are any vegetables that
you eat? i like being green, but i don't
want to be green that way.


songbird
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Old 17-11-2011, 03:28 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Default Taking a year off, diseases, what to do?

songbird writes:


I use a deep cover of salt marsh hay in the beds,
cedar mulch on the paths. I rarely water the plants
and only do so either by hand at the roots, or with
a sprinkler early in the day, so the full sun will
quickly dry them.


ah, ok, i see... there is a likelyhood that
the cedar chips are harboring the fungus.

when did you start using wood chips?
have you ever changed them?
\


Every couple of years, and this year they were fully replaced.

My paths had a lot of weeds, so for the first month or so in the
spring I went over the paths with a root cutter every few days, then
put in the new mulch. This was before putting out the frost vulnerable
plants.

do you mulch the tomatoes heavily too?


Yes, with the same salt marsh hay.

i would not do that. lightly, after the
ground is good and warm, ok, heavily, no,
not needed. tomatoes are dry and warm
weather lovers. heavy mulch defeats both
of those things.



Interesting.

The tomatoes start getting sick in July, with lower
leaves drying up, upper leaves, and tomatoes, getting
spots. The tomatoes on the counter seem to have the
pox after a while. Loads of small black/brown spots on
the surface. It does not really affect the taste.
This year I got about a quarter of a decent
year's yield.

hmm, we lost some leaves due to fungal problems
but didn't have much change in results (in fact it
was a great year for our tomato crop). we grew
beefsteak.


A couple of years ago it was early Late
Blight, but that does not survive our winters. Also that
year the rot often started inside the tomato, not on the
outside.

blossom end rot?

No, I have seen that. This is different.


hm, ok, not something we have seen here.
this past year was the first we'd seen BER
and that was due to the long heat wave we
had.

I grow mostly heirlooms, several brandywine
variants, a couple of plums types (one for cooking, one
for fresh salsa) and two hybrid cherry types. I have
tried a few blight resistant types, but they just did
not taste very good, and did not seem to do much better
against disease.


The last two years my cucs just did not grow. This
year one of the hills did, the other did not.



This year my basil leaves started turning a yellowish
green and tasted very bitter. I ripped out the whole
crop after just one batch of pesto.

Onions, peas, beans, carrots all have done reasonably well.

I have had varying amounts of an internal rot disease
in my garlic (German Extra Hardy stiffneck). Last year
it cost me half my crop, and the garlic I stored did not
last past January --- it usually lasts until April or May.
This year I got most of the crop, time will tell how long
it lasts.

internal rot observed when first harvested or
internal rot after being in storage for a while?


Both.


weather, lifting too early or too late,
curing temperature, ... all can change
storage quality.

another thing, if you are after a long
storing garlic is to pick up some of the
soft necked garlics with the taste that
you'd like but also the increased storage
life.

for rot in the ground, improve drainage
(raise the bed), make sure the soil is warm
before mulching and don't mulch so deeply.
that way the mulch will protect the soil, but
not become as much a breeding ground for
fungus.


if the bulbs are rotting in the ground then
i would raise the beds to give better drainage.


I am sorry I cannot be more specific. I guess I want a
reasonable generic fix. If such exists. Something that will
improve the odds of minimizing common diseases.

burying topsoil deep. that will change the spore
count of the common fungal diseases. then practice
more careful watering and leave more space for airflow
(especially for tomatoes as those seem to be the ones
you are having the most trouble with).


I probably do plant them too close. I carefully train them
up poles, but after they get 7' tall I cannot help them leaning
over and touching each other.


by the time they get that tall it is late
season anyways. anything you pick green can
ripen off the vine. i'd not even worry about
any rots showing up that late. the plants are
shutting down and more succeptible to rot
anyways, why fight the battle they are
quitting?

this season we had tomatoes up until last week.
a month and a half longer than last year. we
picked all the green tomatoes before the hard
frosts damaged them and kept them in the garage
in the open air on a table. some ripened
right away, we canned them, others came along and
got used one way or another. the last few were
not as good as the regular season tomatoes and
had some spots of rot, but we cut around that
and was ok. some tomatoes went bad completely,
it happens, worm food or compost or buried.

last year we put newspaper over them and they
all rotted. i think a lot of them were also
frost damaged, which won't help much of anything.


if you dig it and turn it this fall and then leave it
undisturbed then the sun UV will take out a lot of
the spores. mulching will isolate them and keep them
from splashing the plants, but i would not mulch until
after the soil is well warmed and the plants are in and
growing (as it cools the soil).


I have decided to give the land a rest for a year. What
should I do?

THe soil is still very fertile. I grow tomatoes, peppers,
basil, peas, beans, cucs, zucs, carrots, lettuce...

I rotate, but I am not sure the garden is really big enough
for that to be a big effect, and it is only a four year rotation.

Should I grow stuff that is completely different? Solarize? Just
turn the soil every few weeks to get it exposed to the sun and
elements?

Thanks in advance,

Depends on the problem(s)

Definitely plural, but sadly, non-specific.

yes, you are right that rotating in such a
small garden is likely to not gain much for
disease control (but you still need to do it
for nutrient balancing as different crops use
different nutrients).

Yes, I always plant a 2nd crop of beans after the garlic
and onion harvest. That really fixes up the depleted soil.


i've been very fond of dry beans this
season. i'm still writing up my season bean
report, i put in about 15 kinds, but as i'm
still shelling soybeans i am not going to be
able to finish it until they are shelled and
weighed.


My garden is where the 1879 horse barn was build. It was
torn down in the 1920s, and for 70 odd years the owners piled
their fall leaves there (for some reason there was a basement
to the barn). I have really fertile soil. It is just too
bloody diseased.

Thanks for the advice!


you're welcome. i hope my comments above
supply further fodder for the noodle.


Absolutely!




songbird



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Andrew Hall
(Now reading Usenet in rec.gardens.edible...)
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Old 18-11-2011, 02:58 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Default Taking a year off, diseases, what to do?

Billy wrote:

about copper.

thanks, useful information in there.


songbird
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