The Powdery Mildew Tragedy...

Sad, sad, sad. 
On Sunday I noticed white powdery mildew on my zucchini leaves.  This is bad, I thought, really bad.  And it was.  I did a little research, and it seems that there's no way to reverse the mildew. 

photo from portkellsnursery.com

This photo is not from my garden, I started hacking away without taking pictures.  I wish I had.  My infestation of mildew was not this bad, but any mildew is bad mildew, and I'm sooooo bummed.

All of the leaves showing signs of mildew have to be removed.  You can see from the photo that it works it's way down the stems as well.  You can't reverse it, but you can halt it in it's tracks.  I found a recipe for a non-chemical treatment.  It was one gallon of water, and a tablespoon each of dish detergent, vegetable oil, and baking soda.  The plants get a daily light spray of this mixture while they are infected, and weekly when they are not.  I will have to report back as to how they are doing. 

Plants with large leaves are succeptable to powdery mildew.  In my garden that means squash (zucchini, crookneck, and spaghetti) and also cucumbers (lemon and burpless).  Of course, they are planted right next to each other (of course they are!) so it just spread down the row like crazy.  The top of these plants are much less infected than the bottoms, where the leaves are denser.  It's tragic.  I hope to be able to get a handle on this fungal infection before I lose my whole plant to it.  Wish me luck.

There is some discussion about the milk based spray vs. the baking soda and soap based spray.  The guy and I didn't think that spraying milk, which would spoil, on the plant seemed like a good idea.  I found a day by day comparison (in someone else's garden, thankfully), and once reading it, my mind was made up.  Here's the blog: http://voices.yahoo.com/get-rid-white-fuzzy-spots-zucchini-plant-leaves-8762103.html

That's it for now... updates later.  
Green thumb out.

Squash blossoms are from Mars AND Venus

The squash row in my garden

In the back of the garden, against the neighbor's wall, I have spaghetti squash, crookneck squash, and black beauty zucchini.  I am a complete novice when it comes to squash.  I've grown pumpkins and gourds before, but never squash. 

A while back, I was concerned about my squash blossoms.  The plants were healthy and growing like crazy, and they'd produce these gorgeous orange blossoms, but then the blossoms would just wither and die.  They'd fall right off, and I wasn't seeing any little squashes anywhere.  I felt terrible for the little guys...  What was I doing wrong? 

 As it turns out, I wasn't doing anything wrong at all.  A few minutes on Google had me learning a lot about squash.  There's always the people to who jump to conclusions  - - diseases, pests, not enough fertilizer...  and there are the people who actually know what they are talking about...  I like to listen to them.

 

Turns out, squashes have male and female blossoms.  The male blossoms fertilize the females (this is sounding a bit like 5th grade health class, isn't it?), and the females produce the fruit. 

 

I felt much better knowing this.  I wondered how many others were worried about their plants unnecessarily.  I started looking closely over the next week or so, and was pleased to see some little zucchini beginning to form on the female blossoms.  There's a difference in the look of the blossoms too.  Males have a thinner stem, and females have a thicker stem, even before they've bloomed.  Have a look:

 

  Once you know what to look for, there really is quite a difference.  I love going out into the garden in the cool mornings and seeing all of the blooms.  They are so lovely.  The color is bright and they just cheer me. 

 

I'm looking forward to all of the possibilities!!!   I have a whole recipe file just bursting with zucchini recipes:  stuffed zucchini parmesan; zucchini-beef casserole; green chile zucchini rice; zucchini bread; even zucchini whoopee pies!!  If you want any of these recipes, leave your email address in the comments and which recipe you want, and I'll send it to you!  If you have a great zucchini or squash recipe, put it in the comments, or email it to me at dawn@everettb.com!