So I was inspired to take some pictures of my garden today.

I'm a little disappointed - I think i'm going to lost about 1/2 of my plants dueto the "rot", the green beans were beaten by the spider mites it seems, and the peas just are doing well. Tomatoes are for now though!

The green beans are not a harvest..I pulled them all in an attempt to keep the plants live..there are hardly and leaves left.

Also, there are some pics of my "rotting" stems which i'd like to figure out why it's happend so it does not happen to my next ones..they are zukes, cukes and pumpkins.


http://picasaweb.google.com/wannafly37/GardenApril03#

Sorry not to get back, but this is one that didn't strike me right away as something that I have seen before. I have lots of books, just need some time to look and see if I can figure something out.

Every once and a while it FEELS like I have encountered every problem know to gardening, but there are many bad things that I have not experienced .... yet.

Roy, thanks its not a problem.

I thought i'd update,, the other cuke seedling i posted about, I replanted it and it's already..in 1 or 2 days span..seems to have a similar problem. The maint stalk became very "wimpy" and is flat.

I think it might have to do with giving them too much sun too quickly, so i'll try to be much more careful with the next batch.

I'm also going to contact the extension office or go there, but it's hard b/c they are only open while i'm at work.

You may be right that they are getting too much sun too fast.

Any plant that starts indoors needs to be hardened off.
It is best to start with just 2 hours outdoors, then 4, then 6.
I like to start on Wednesday or Thursday when I can set them out after work. Not direct sunlight, so even better. Over the weekend I keep increasing it.

If I have a distracted weekend, I may wait until the next weekend to plant them outdoors. For Tomatoes and broccoli, you get white burn marks on the leaves. Maybe with your cucs you are getting sunburn on the stems.

I not 100% convinced that that is all that is going on, but justed wanted to through that out. FL has some intense sun.

I emailed my extension office and got a VERY helpful reply. This might explain my sunflower problem also. I'm very worried now and I think i'm in over my head. Sounds like i might as well give up on the cukes/zukes/beans/peas and sunflowers..which leaves me with my herbs, tomatoes and pepper: (

The reply:
Just based solely on the pictures, it looks like you have sclerotinia or white mold. Once established in the soil this disease can last a long time. Cycle away from these crops. Plant sweet corn in the spring and then solarize the garden this summer. See paper on this website http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/filelibrary/40/942.pdf on how to do that. Also, your garden soil looks like it has a lot of undecomposed rough plant matter or bark in it…this can be a breeding ground for disease organisms. Always use well decomposed compost not raw compost. Hope this helps.

I feel your pain. Although I am not familiar with that particular mold, I was researching and leaning toward something along those lines. I was worried that my own experiences might be leading me down that path and nasty soil diseases are not (YET) my area of expertise.

I have white onion rot in my soil. I am down to a few raised beds that don't seem to have it, so I can grow members of the allum family there (garlic my fav).

The good thing is in FL you can solarize your soil. In HMB that is hard/impossible to do.

If you are still itching grow, check your disease and see if you put up a small rasied bed with soil if you could grow a few things this year while solarizing your garden. (Make sure the disease won't transfer. Make sure that you have a bucket of dilute beach and clean tools before going between beds)

I am very sorry to hear of this problem. Only glad that you were able to get great local help and support and now know what you are up against instead of being frustrated and scratching your head .

Hi All
I have had a similar problem in a flowerbed, luckily the white mold has stayed away from the garden, anyway I read about the solarizing thing and my problem was not enough sun at that spot. Then I was watching a program on PBS and this farmer was using propane-fired heat to “sterilize” the soil rather than using chemicals. Basically killing all of the unwanted weed seeds and other “stuff’, the guy on the program claimed they got a penetration of 4 to 5 inches in tilled soil. So I figured what the heck, I bought one of those propane long handle “torches” from harbor freight. (Get the ones with the “turbo” blast) and proceeded to bake the ground. It didn’t take long and it worked great. The white stuff was gone and so were the weeds (for a while) although I haven’t seen any more mold. I now use that thing all the time.
Hope it helps.
Don

WannaFly and Don, et altera,

i could see from your pictures that the white "stuff" was all over the planting bed area... not surprising that you overlooked it, since it was everywhere ;^)

i've seen that same mold in planting beds around Syracuse, NY and where i live; it seems to me that it comes from the bark used in the bark mulch. i guess i'd have to say that the creation of that bark mulch is not like rocket science; whatever goes into the chopper gets put into a bag and winds up on your soil. and if it's local bark, and if you live in FL, then it's highly likely that all kinds of different stuff is in there, being a tropical climate (compared to Syracuse, at least!).

i'd get totally away from that patch of soil, and start another garden with no bark mulch or anything else you don't know the specific origin of, and restart.

good luck!
dave

Don: Never would've thought to take a torch to my soil haha. Not sure i'll try it, my soil has a lot of sticks in it, and my rasied bed sides are wood. glad it worked for you though!

boldpsi: Thanks for the input, I'm thinking more and more it's the soil. Kind of makes me mad..I spent $50 for the soil! Not sure what I can do with it since it's a raised bed, I'd hate to empty it and refill it with bagged soil...ugh.. I guess i'm going to try the solarizing in june/july.


I'd like to start another (smaller) raised bed and will be sure to NOT use any of that soil.

Another things is to wash off any garden tool that was used in the contaminated beds and then wipe with Clorox wet wipes or equivalent.

I've taken some more recent pics.
I've also had my first "small" harvest. Garden is doing good,but i'm having more and more pest/bug problems.


http://picasaweb.google.com/wannafly37/GardenAndHarvestMay09#