Powdery Mildew advice

[JimineyC]

Hi. I went out today and found powdery mildew spreading all over my squashes and pumpkin leaves. Most of the books I read tell me pumpkins are very easy to grow and have few pests.
How I laugh at such talk. Certainly whatever problems they do have, my garden is a playground for them.
Okay, I can prune the mildew leaves, but I also read that garlic can be crushed in water to make a home made spray - due to the high content of sulphur in the garlic. (Also baking soda apparently). Can anyone confirm the garlic, or more importantly - can they specify ratio's of garlic to water?
Slugs, birds, mites, early yellowing and dropping off fruit and now mildew. And one of my maturing squashes just vanished over night, not a shread of it left! So maybe that's Mice to add to the List!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. And atleast there is water again down in the South

Jimbo

[pickledtink]

It's the rain and less than sunny weather.
Snip off the badly affected leaves first.
Then when you water or feed make sure you don't get any on the leaves. Overcrowding is a factor too. If like me you grow in a very small space this is always a problem. You can thin the leaves out a bit to give them some breathing space too.
Don't despair. I've also got this right now. After all that struggle to keep them alive let alone growing through the heatwave 5 minutes of rain and gloom and they're carrying on like consumptive victorian misses!
There's always some battle to be waged. Get out there and impale a few slugs. That'll cheer you up.

[j.flett]

mildew

hi.a cure for mildew is milk at a ratio of 9 water1 milk and sprayed on leaves.but as milk is not a reconised plant spray it is illegal to use it under eu laws

[Squirrel]

hi.a cure for mildew is milk at a ratio of 9 water1 milk and sprayed on leaves.but as milk is not a reconised plant spray it is illegal to use it under eu laws

Is it just me is the world going mad! That is ridiculous that I can't spray my own plants with milk if I feel like it!

[nick the grief]

it's easy to fix Squirrel, you pay some bod in the EU £10k/annum & they test it & say you can do it THats why ***** & Armillartox can't be sold for anything other that Patio cleaner & you can't make a pesticide out of Rhubarb leaves.

[Snadger]

Watch out for the men in white coats catching you spraying your veggies with milk!

[sewer rat]

Up here the men in white coats are called Milkmen !

[JimineyC]

Great, I'd not heard of the milk remedy. I've just been away for 6 days in the Lakes so I've been sweating on how my plants are doing. My homemade garlic spray apparently had no effect on the mildew so I'll get straight on the Milk - EU or no EU. I'm assuming Semi-Skimmed is all right for this. Severeal pumpkins have been munched or are yellowing but another one is the size of an orange. The successs rate seems to be about 1 in 5 at the moment with getting the fruits to mature. Ah well.
Thanks again.

Jim

[Snadger]

I've heard of people using milk to 'age' a concrete tub, which causes algae to grow.

Maybe the algae will disguise the mildew Lol

[JimineyC]

Maybe it will. Maybe I'll be able to pass off the Pumpkins as Ye Olde Pumpkins and sell tickets.
I sprayed them with the milk dilute anyhow, so now we'll wait and see. The rain probably washes it all off before it has chance to work.

[heebiejeebie]

Mine were suffering too - I've removed the affected leaves & binned them. I'll try the milk on the rest!

[Snadger]

Up here the men in white coats are called Milkmen !

Milkmen are a dying breed round here...all milk comes from tesco's in cartons!

[pickledtink]

I'm losing this battle too. Did the milk thing work?

[JimineyC]

It's tough to say. The worst leaves were pruned so it already looks better. There is still mildew on the leaves but I can't tell whether it is spreading or is under control yet.

[JimineyC]

Mildew doesn't seem to be effected by the Milk. I've ordered some proper conmtrol for it. Hopefully it's not too late, though any new squashes and pumpkins that have formed have died off, even after hand pollinating. It's possible I didn't squirt with the milk dilute enough