Combating Plant Ailments - Garden Journal Challenge
Greetings, everyone! It seems every single plant in our gardens is being plagued by something, so today we're going to try and fix that!
The roses, as you can see, are infected with black spot fungus. It starts off with a small black spot on the leaflet that gets bigger and bigger and eventually turns the entire leaf yellow before it falls off.
This fungal infection is caused by high moisture in cool temperatures. My plants contacted it because someone thought it was a good idea to heavily spritz the leaves with water at night, when there's no sun or warmth to dry it up.
The recent cloudy days are probably what led to my bean plants contracting what looks like powdery mildew.
See the white fuzzy spots? I sprayed the plants with a soapy water mixture. If this does not work then I'll add a little baking soda to the mix. The change in pH on the leaf surface will definitely kill both the black spot and mildew.
Hopefully the development of the pods will not be affected too much, though I think one of the smaller ones on this plant might be aborted.
One of my other bean plants has been losing a lot of foliage, which I initially blamed on our chickens.
This was odd though because, as I've mentioned in previous posts, they tend to leave the beans alone. Upon closer examination, however, I discovered the real culprit.
I found this little guy hiding under a curled part of one of the leaves. That's how he's been managing to stay off the radar, curling the leaves with a bit of silk. Luckily it was just the one, which Blackie the Chicken picked up and ran away with to eat far from the sticky beaks of La Pelona and Dingleberry.
In other insect pest news, our potted nopal or prickly pear cactus is under a lot of stress. It must be rootbound because it dries out quickly and for some other reason it is looking very pale. All this stress is probably what made it susceptible to what appear to be large mealy bugs.
When squished, their guts are dark red and the color is hard to come off. This reminded me of the light red guts of the mealy bugs plaguing my citrus tree back home. Little known fact: much of the artificial red color in foods comes from a natural dye made from these bugs. Disgusting? Or cool?
Note the darker shade of green and abundant new growth.
I don't know how to deal with these other than picking them off by hand, but there must be hundreds and I can't reach the ones on the backside of the plant. I'll just have to let it run its course. The cactus bloomed but I don't think it will fruit, though it does have another bud forming.
Let's end this post on a good note by discussing the only plants that seem to be doing very well without any problems whatsoever.
Wheat! In the last update, the espiga or spike was barely emerging. Now they are in full bloom.
You can even see the pollen. I've very excited for it to mature and save the seeds and even bring a few back home with me. I'll be sure to share it with you all over it's dry, yellow, and more familiar looking.
I hope you enjoyed the updated tour of the garden. How do you deal with pests? Is it the same it do you use another method? Don't be a stranger and show some interaction!
Thanks for stopping by!
That is all, folks.
I will have to go through your post again after the holidays. This year my garden plants are also victims of some leaf diseases
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Hope you find the time and that the treatment works! Good luck!
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Sorry to read you have to deal with all that in your garden, but I did learn some new things today.
First: the thing that has been infecting my plants in the garden for the last two years is not black spot fungus, because it doesn't look anything like your pics. (A little background info: two years ago, my plants got infected with something I couldn't identify and by early September, the infection killed my entire garden. Last year, it returned, but I could keep it somewhat under control and most plants managed to survive the season. Up until today, I still have no clue what it is. I asked in several gardening centers, but they all give me different answers. I'll have to wait and see if it will return again this year and continue my search.)
Also, I didn't know about the baking soda, to be honest. I've started organic gardening only 3 years ago, so every new trick I learn is more than welcome.
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Glad I was able to share some useful information. I heard black spot rarely kills roses but I don't know about its effects on other plants. It's definitely not a disease that only affects roses though. Hopefully you'll be able to catch it early and be able to treat it using baking soda. So you get a lot of moisture in your area?
Yeah, I guess... climate is a bit wet here. Not a lot of heat either (in general).
The combination for fungal diseases
Last year was better than the year before. But I did spray everything with rock dust regularly. Keeps them dry a bit + keeps pests away. Let's hope this year will be better again
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Where do you live? Sounds like your garden is struggling some, but glad you have it under control! Prickly pear grows like weeds here - we had a real epidemic of them back in the day!
I live in Chicago but right now I'm staying in Michoacán, Mexico. Here the wild prickly pears are very spiny and I don't think anyone eats the spears. I wonder what the fruit tastes like. Only sometimes I see some like mine growing in the wild. Where do they grow like weeds, I wonder?
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