Hill Gardens of Maine - Solving Some Problems Before Next Season

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Solving Some Problems Before Next Season
by Fred Davis, MG, Hill Gardens of Maine (To view other articles, click Archives)

Welcome through Fred's Garden Gate! Judging from the tone of questions I continue to receive on the "answer" phone, there were quite a few unresolved problems in many Maine gardens during the 1999 growing season.

This time, let’s revisit a few of those ‘ol bugaboos to see if we just might be able to, if not eliminate, then at least avoid the same garden frustrations as the new-millennium gardening season begins. First come a couple of really annoying soil diseases, then an urgent nutritional problem.

One of the most distressing disasters which seed-germinating gardeners face is damp-off in the seed tray. Caused by either pythium or rhizoctonia, this malady is responsible for the nearly instantaneous destruction of huge numbers of recently sprouted plant babies. Here’s what happens: The seeds are up and seem to be developing normally. The next morning, a patch of seedlings the size of a nickel has fallen flat and looks for all the world like something crushed their little stems at soil level. Within another 24-hours, the disease spreads and threatens to destroy the entire lot. Death of precious baby plants is sure and fast - unless the infected area is quickly and thoroughly removed.

Soil sterilization, carefully scrubbed containers, trowels, soil sieves and hands would almost certainly have prevented the problem. Using screened vermiculite to cover sown seed would help, too, as would ample air circulation following germination.

Powdery mildew was a particularly troublesome aggravation in many gardens this past season. All seems well until small, dusty-white patches show up on leaves of roses, lilacs, garden phlox, bee balm and veronica – even some vegetables like peas. Spreading exponentially, mildews – if left unattended – weaken plants, cause widespread leaf-drop and ruin flowers.

The disease thrives in warm, moist conditions, especially where overly dense planting hinders free movement of air. And therein lies much of the solution: properly maintained gardens, kept clean, neat, well fed and with adequate air flow and ample sunlight – combined with avoiding sprinkling susceptible foliage late in the afternoon – will prevent most powdery mildew problems.

Something that flies hard in the face of wintering-over recommendations oft-spoken by media garden "gurus" is the fact that a great many common garden diseases survive winter in fallen, infected plant residues. So very many gardeners think that they’re doing their plants a great service by allowing frost-burned leaves and stems to remain in the garden over winter. The plain and brutal fact is that these layers upon layers of infected plant remains virtually insure disease survival - and annual reinfection.

Molds, mildews, viruses, fungi, wilts, spots, streaks, blotches and scabs are deeply grateful for this comfy winter home! Mulch, yes…but clean up the garden first.

Something else that plagued many gardeners this year (and last; and years before that) centers around some serious nutritional imbalance. We’ve all seen these nearly-starved gardens. Corn that rarely exceeds three-feet in height; lettuce, carrots, chard and spinach that bolts long before time for useful harvest; potatoes, tomatoes and peppers that’re pitifully small and yellow-leafed with little – if anything – to harvest. Pansies, marigolds and petunias that sit there all season – doing virtually nothing. The soil is usually tan in color, littered with stones, clogged with pasture weeds and, with the first few good drops of rain, what little nutrition that remains erodes down the driveway and into the brook.

"Gardens" such as these cry out for help. A bag of urea-nitrogen or a bale of peat moss from the local farm ‘n garden, however, is just not enough. Sprinkling a dab of 10-10-10 here and a cupful of bagged compost there simply doesn’t get the nutritional job done. Take a tip from abundantly-successful gardeners: Add at least four-inches of nutrient-rich compost or well-rotted barnyard or stable manure to your garden plot this coming spring, and forget the little bags of chemicals and bales of nutritionless peat moss. Compost and other organic material well-mixed into garden soil a couple of weeks before planting may seem like a lot of work, but the end result will be vibrantly-healthy, sweet, nutrient-packed and succulent vegetables, and robust, colorful and healthy flowers - well worth it in my book!

As a final note: for a tremendous online resource dealing with common maladies and diseases of tomatoes, bring up the Master Gardener page on the Texas A & M website: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/imagemap/mgmaps/mgprob.html. (Link verified 11/2007)

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