Gardening update

Brian and I took a tour around our garden last night before he went out for Kopp's custard. (The second time this week. I love being pregnant!) I had already noticed an issue with one of the tomato plants out front and then saw an issue with the squash in the back. So while he was out to Kopp's, I did some investigative googling. A gardener/blogger turned me onto a Minnesota Ag Extension website, helpfully titled "What's wrong with my plant?" You pick your plant, then scroll down a list of diseases with pictures and pick it! It's like WebMD for your garden. That's the good news.

The bad news? The squash have powdered mildew and the bush tomato out front has verticillium wilt.

I'm going to pull the squash since they aren't producing anyway. Part of the issue with powdery mildew is crowded plants, which makes sense because everything is too crowded in the back planter.

Yucky mildew that I don't want spreading to my Brussels Sprouts!

I'm going to trim the diseased part of the tomato and fertilize this weekend. There's not much I can do, but it doesn't seem to have spread to the juliets and sunsugars, which is great. It spreads in the soil, but some tomatoes are resistant. VW is a cool-weather issue so I'm not surprised seeing it now. I'm grateful it's not late-blight.

The fruit of the tomato is still fine. I'll give it until it completely dies.

In the back I'm going to pull the two squash plants and the bell peppers. That should help free up some room. Then I'll work some of my compost and fertilizer into the soil and give everything a few weeks before starting some kale for the fall. I especially don't want the mildew spreading to everything else, so it's got to go!