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To: CottonBall

Plain old clorox will help the blight too.

Between clorox and the mulch I don’t have a problem with foliar diseases much anymore.

5oz of clorox concentrate (plain, not scented etc) plus one gallon (I save an old milk jug for this) mixed in a pump sprayer. Wait till the sun has gone down (If the sun hits it while the plants are still damp from the bleach spray it will burn them up) and then drench every part of the plant you can. Especially under the leaves and the new growth.

Stand UPwind and don’t breathe any in. I wear one of those masks you get at walmart when I do this. Also, wear old clothes.

Be sure to thoroughly rinse your sprayer including spraying out clean water for a bit. The bleach solution, if left sitting, will eat the little rubberized parts.

I follow up the next morning with a gentle feeding (1/2 strength of the urbanfarms texas tomato food is what I currently use).

If the vines are still green when you start they’ll be fine. Although they’ll look like hammered heck for a couple weeks. Eventually they’ll put out a little branch at the junction of each of the infected big leaves. They will then take over your garden.

This doesn’t do anything for soil borne diseases (nematodes, verticillium, fusarium, etc) but it will stop most foliar ones.

I use this technique to stop blackspot on my roses. I just feed them with miracle grow for roses afterwards.

I recommend joining ‘tomatoville’. Lots of people there who have all sorts of clever tricks. Tomatoville is where I learned of the bleach treatment. IIRC some of them use this to control powdery and downy mildew on cucumbers and squash plants too.


21 posted on 05/27/2016 7:55:59 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: Black Agnes
Drugstore strength hydrogen peroxide 1 part peroxide to 9 parts of water great for fungal diseases, damping off on seedlings if they haven't keeled over, just to keep things healthy.

I read the Amish spray it on their harvested green bean plants to stimulate reblossoming for a second crop.

I was winter sowing into gallon milk jugs almost everything. Then setting out in what they call HOS (hunks of seedlings) in the garden. Worked great. The plants know when to germinate, and the tops on the containers protect them, in warmer weather, open them during the day, don't let dry out.

I burned a lot of drainage holes. Rain and snow water through the small pouring hole believe it or not. The only thing I didn't do right and lost some is set up on something other than ground or sidewalk where the water can drain.

I wasn't growing veggies though, just tomatoes. Was planning on doing herbs and lettuce in my collection of plastic porch boxes and a few other things. Don't want ones that take too much soil and don't want clay pots as they dry out like crazy, aren't really better for plants unless you don't set the pots to drain properly or over water them.

28 posted on 05/27/2016 10:44:11 PM PDT by Aliska (Trump/Love 2016 has a nice ring to it, now we shall see)
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