Powdery Mildew? Whoa!

Based on what I remember from last year and from Greg’s recollection of the last 10+ years, the powdery mildew has made an early entrance and it’s never a welcomed one. Powdery mildew is basically a fungus that can infect many different species of plants, but for some reason it loves Curcurbits (cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, melons and watermelons). Just my luck! It’s pretty easy to spot it too, it literally looks like a powdery spot on the leaf or the stem. You’ll find it all over the plant. Bummer

Powdery mildew loves high humidity as it helps the spores germinate and it loves plants that are super crowded as it makes it easier for the spores to progress and infect other parts of the plant. It’s important to keep the air circulating around the plants. Being in the middle of a large co-op, it’s hard to control all aspects of the environment and these things are bound to happen, the best you can do is to cut the leaves that are really infected and try to control them naturally or with the use of fungicides. I couldn’t tell you what chemicals to use, but I can offer a natural solution that I’m still testing. It’s called Neem Oil concentrate and is completely natural as it comes from the Indian Neem plant. I purchased a small concentrated bottle at the local gardening center and it seems to be working. I put about 2 Tablespoons of it into 2 gallons of water and sprayed all parts of the plants. It took quite some time, but I’m hopeful that it will prevent it from spreading.

Despite the setback, the plants are doing great and the personalities are starting to show up in texture and color! Check out the images below to catch a little peak of the pumpkins that are currently growing. The last time I counted I had over 60 pumpkins growing! Most of them are the smaller “Little October” variety, but I’m still excited and think I’ll have no problem hitting my goal of 100!