It seems like our garden are going to be under attack by one enemy or another no matter how hard we act upon to manage them . This year I face fresh invaders : anthracnose on my tomatoes , white flies on my cole and collard , and powdery and puberulent mold on my cucurbits ( cucumbers , squeeze and pumpkins ) . I do n’t know how or why these payoff attack my vegetable garden this twelvemonth , or if others fight the same battles , but will volunteer some background and treatment for each problem in the hopes that it may help others deal with them in the future .
Anthracnose
My tomato were off to a great start until about mid - August when I startle seeing rot dapple ( see photo ) on every tomato , on every plant life , as they set about to rick colour , worsening as they ripened further . While I had see anthracnose invasion on Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree leaves , our dogwood for example , it had never shown up on vegetable before . After some investigation I resolve that anthracnose was the perpetrator and ended up pulling and trashing all my tomato plant works , losing my home grown tomatoes this year . Bummer .
Anthracnose is a family of fungal diseases that can bear upon shade Tree and a variety of vegetable include tomatoes , beans , pepper , eggplant , cucurbit , prickly-seeded spinach and peas . It disperse via spore in cool , moist , breezy weather and shape soft lesions with dingy midpoint that penetrate fruits as they ripen . The fungus overwinters in seeds , soil and works residue .
Best direction advice let in :
White Flies
white-hot flies are an louse related to aphids , mealy bugs , and scale . They feed by sucking sap from plant vegetation . The many different white fly specie can damage vegetables , nursery works , and ornamentals . They die in cold climates but can reproduce year - cycle in warmer environments , including nursery . As the photo shows , they are 1/10 to 1/16 in farsighted with a tiny moth - alike visual aspect . Adult females can lay 2 - 400 eggs that hatch in about a workweek . They hatch as flathead houri that crawl around plants , enclose mouthpart to fertilise . After molting , they lose their stage and antennae and attach to leaf undersides for about 4 weeks , looking like oval shaped scale . The adult stage lasts about a calendar month . All life stages can be present and generation often overlap .
White flies price plant by suck plant juices . Large population of developing nymph dampen plant leaves , often turn them lily-livered and causing untimely drop . They run to lactate more plant liquid state than they can digest . This go them to stick a honeydew melon on the leaf , providing a increase medium for sooty molding that can harm plant health . Some metal money can transmit plant viruses .
Control action include :
Powdery and Downy Mildew
Powdery mold on pumpkin vine . Photo : R Morini
Powderymildewis a fungal disease that liberate microscopical spore that spread across plants and extract nutrients . It search like flour dusted on the folio surface . Young leaves are the most susceptible , but it spreads from the crowns to lowly leave , including folio undersides . In the fall round contraband post form that become fruiting body that relinquish spores that unfold the mold . The effect is to slow up plant growth , have leaves to yellow and whither , distort and stunt plant , and dissemble fruit tone .
Powdery mould tends to shape during warm , dry atmospheric condition but high humidity further spore formation and spread the contagion . It slows at temps below 60 and above 90 degrees . It can infect century of plant from trees to edibles to grasses , with unlike specie impacting dissimilar plants .
Downy mildewis a water mold disease , rather than a fungal disease . It flourish in cool , humid precondition and start as a fluffy growth on the undersides of leaves . It grows into yellowed point on the upper foliage surface , make leave and ultimately full plants to wilt and whither . It moves tight , sometimes drink down plant life in a week . Also , some spore are release and can taint other plants . Spores can move into soil from rot plants and hold up for up to 5 years , making good bed maintenance a must . It can affect many and various plants and plant families including basil , cucurbit , brassica , roses , berries , impatiens and others .
Management practices for both powdery and downy mildew include :
ending
These issues were my master garden battles in 2024 . Regrettably , the anthracnose ruined my tomato crop . While the mold prematurely killed my pumpkin plants , there were several fruits that were far enough along that , while a little smaller than we would have liked , gained people of colour and were in full video display on Halloween even . Meanwhile a 2nd planting of greens in a different arena restrain us supplied with kale and collard greens . finger thwart that the direction practices above will help me do better next year . Gardening is truly a never - ending learnedness experience .
Sources :
Anthracnose of subtlety trees | UMN Extension
Anthracnose and Other Common Leaf Diseases of Deciduous Shade Trees | Oklahoma State University ( okstate.edu )
Anthracnose diseases of Tree | NC State Extension Publications ( ncsu.edu )
Anthracnose Disease of Vegetables | University of Maryland Extension ( umd.edu )
Anthracnose of cucurbits | UMN Extension
Anthracnose of Pepper | NC State Extension Publications ( ncsu.edu )
Managing Whiteflies on Indoor and Outdoor Plants | MU Extension ( missouri.edu )
Whiteflies Found on Flowers and Foliage | NC State Extension Publications ( ncsu.edu )
Whiteflies – Solutions for Your Life – University of Florida , Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences – UF / IFAS ( ufl.edu )
Powdery Mildew ( psu.edu )
Powdery mould on trees and shrubs | UMN Extension
Addressing Downy Mildew and Powdery Mildew in the Home Garden ( psu.edu )
Powdery mould in heyday and vining vegetable | UMN Extension
https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/BP/BP-5-W.pdf
Most Troublesome Pumpkin Diseases in Virginia | VCE Publications | Virginia Tech ( vt.edu )
Featured Photo : Early downy mildew on pumpkin leaf . Photo : R Morini
