A Sad Day in the Garden

So I planted some corn yesterday. That's the good news. But being a beginning gardener, I am learning as I go, and that sometimes brings sad news. Fungus. I wish now that I had known what I was looking at right away. The weather has brought perfect conditions for mushrooms, which I got caught up in. Meanwhile, some undesirable fungi were finding the conditions quite favorable on my plants. At first I thought, "Oh, it's just a little dead spot on the leaf-- no big deal". Then I noticed more. Things did not look good. I thought something was chewing on them. It occurred to me that this would leave holes, not ringed spots that kept growing. The pawpaw leaf spray obviously couldn't help. So I looked up plant diseases and saw a few that I recognized. I looked up organic fungicide. Grain alcohol vinegar with 10% acidity comes highly recommended, but I haven't found it for sale locally. So the recipe I'm going with is 1 Tbsp. baking soda in 4 cups warm water with 1/2 Tbsp. mineral oil and a dash of dish soap, shaken well and sprayed on.

Most sources say to remove diseased plants and burn them. If the fungus is just beginning to grow, you can prune off the affected leaves. It has spread to nearly everything: vegetable plants, herbs, flowers, possibly fruit. And almost every single leaf shows beginning signs of little yellow speckles. It's a horrible tragedy, and I didn't know what to do. I was not willing to abandon my plants. I picked off some of the worst looking leaves, and told myself perhaps that would be enough. I was standing there agonizing in front of the hot & spicy oregano. Now this hot & spicy oregano has been with me for a while now; it was one of the first herb plants I bought. It saw me struggling with my ambivalence and it stepped in. It told me the only way to save the plants is to go ahead and strip off the leaves except for the tiniest new growth and then continue to spray with the baking soda mixture. I didn't want to give in, but the oregano was very persistent and brave. "Just go ahead and take the leaves; we will spring back. It's the only way to save us." It pained me... it pained the plants. But I trust my friend, hot & spicy oregano; so I proceeded. We sat around a fire last night and I burned the leaves that I had spent hours pulling from my plant family, thanking them for their guidance. Plants are very brave; they keep moving forward and trying to grow when things get difficult. They are willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. We could all learn from these marvelously simple creatures.

My plants are skeletal and naked now; but they all look hopeful just the same, covered with tiny new growth ready to start a new beginning. Take fungus very seriously. It can take over everything. Take precautions before any sign of a threat. Become familiar with plant diseases before you notice anything is amiss. This site was helpful to me: http://www.planetnatural.com/site/plant-diseases.html
Here is another: http://www.ghorganics.com/page15.html
By the way, one of my apple trees has fire blight; so there's another thing to deal with. I have a bit more leaf stripping to do today before I'm ahead of the fungus. I would like to give thanks to all of my brave plants, and especially my hot & spicy oregano. I'm not sure I could have gone through with the process without its encouragement and support. If you think I'm talking crazy, then you don't know plants.

Progress in the Garden

I put on sunblock today, not realizing that I would have to stay bundled up if I were to function. I have been spraying our plants with our homemade pawpaw leaf pesticide. I'll report back later with my results. I planted onions and garlic, a bit late, I admit. I planted the rest of the okra. Here are a few pictures of the garden's progress.


Here is some garlic I planted a little earlier.


I planted these yellow onions a couple of weeks ago.


A bloom budding on our purple pepper plant!

Organic Pesticide

I've read that all the wonderful Paw Paw trees in our magical little hollow contain a natural and potent pesticide. Of course, the articles are about making extract in a lab with string solvents like industrial grade ethanol and such which, in my opinion, goes beyond what could be considered "organic". I have also read, however, that organic gardeners use the leaves, stems, twigs, and bark to make their own natural and effective pesticides.

What I can't find is any sort of recipe or anything on exactly how the hell they manage this.

The organic pesticide recipes I have found involve mainly capsaicin (the stuff that makes peppers and onions and such hot). In these recipes, you simply cut the ingredients up small, blend them into a paste, steep said paste in water for a bit, strain, add a bit of vegetable oil and a dash of dish soap to break up the surface tension of the water and there you are.

I figure this should work with the paw paw parts as well so that is what I'm trying. I intend to also make a capsaicin based solution as well and testing them against one another. I will post again in the future once I have some conclusive results.

UPDATE:

The first test of the organic pesticide; we found a spotted up leaf on one of our watermelons. Upon further inspection, we found a striped cucumber beetle just going to town on it. We filled a spray bottle with our paw paw leaf solution, gave it a spritz and WOW! the beetle didn't fall over and die or anything, but it DID start running around in circles and then jumped off the leaf, to be seen no more!