Hi everyone!
It has been a month since I planted my super simple container veggie garden, so I want to bring you an update and show you how everything is doing! Check out last month's video so you can see the progress for yourself! Then check out the current video:
My plants are doing pretty well except that we were seriously lacking in sunshine for the first part of summer, it rained too much and our humidity was much higher than normal. What does that mean? Fungus. And lots of it. I chose to tackle it head on with three products:
1. Serenade Garden Disease Control Fungicide -- This ready-to-use spray is organic and very effective. It can be used to treat a wide spectrum of fungal and bacterial garden diseases. It is also non-toxic to your family in pets. It is so safe you can harvest your fruits and vegetables the same day you use treat your plants. Just spray on all the leaves, both tops and undersides, ensuring full coverage. You may need to follow up with a second application in one week.
2. Einstein Oil Leaf Shine -- Einstein Oil is a 100% natural and organic cold-pressed neem oil. For those of you in the organic gardening world, neem oil is a must. It is a very effective insecticide and fungicide. In fact, I'm kicking myself, because if I would have used the neem as a preventative I probably would have avoided the fungal issues I ran into. Lesson learned. My master gardener boyfriend is shaking his head at me. Apply the neem as a foliar spray, mixing 1/2-2 tsp. per quart of water. One trick with the Einstein Oil is to run the bottle under hot water to loosen it up (it gets semi-solid at room temp).
3. The Salmon Guy's Living Compost Tea -- Unless you live near my store in Washington, sorry to say you are going to miss out on this bad ass product. We brew our own compost tea in our store and pour it fresh for our customers. Our tea is FULL of living bacteria and beneficial microbes which encourage extreme root growth, which in turn encourages extreme vegetative growth! Because our microbes are living and don't need to be inoculated, the tea needs to be used within three days of purchase, which is why we can't ship. :( Compost tea, in general, is excellent for discouraging nasty plant pathogens and powdery mildew. We have run many side-by-side tests with our tea, and the plants that drink our tea ALWAYS blow away the plants that don't. It's kind of amazing. If you want to mimic the effect of our tea, you can always purchase a bottled compost tea or brew your own, and also use a mycorrhizae product. I would highly recommend a product called Mykos, from Xtreme Gardening. Their products are responsible for growing the record-holding World's Biggest Pumpkin. Plus the guys who own the company are way cool. Thankfully, my game plan seemed to do the trick and my babies are bouncing back.
How are your gardens doing? I want pictures, so hit me up on facebook and twitter!
Peace & Love,
Mon
No comments:
Post a Comment