Hello! Although I’ve posted a number of times on this forum in the past, I’ve been mostly absent since the spring. (That’s what happens when lots goes on in your life.)
My big gardening problem right now is a bad fungal outbreak that needs to get stopped.
The fungus looks like the same thing that hit last year, which was devastating. Tomato leaves for example will develop brown spots / splotches on them that seem to spread, with the whole leaf turning yellow and dying. The end result is that this happens to the entire plant and kills it.
Last year it killed my tomatoes, pole beans, a fuzzy kiwifruit vine, and some other plants, and damaged my sweet peppers and others. It quite literally stripped all the leaves off multiple trues. Both my Carmine Jewels were completely defoliated (they did grow back some leaves later and flowered as if it were spring - this happened in the early fall) and two dogwoods in the backyard were nearly stripped clean. Amazing.
Last year I did try some copper spray, Neem Oil, and another type of oil I’ve forgotten (OMRI approved) to get the fungus under control and knock it back. This was not very successful. Although this was probably in part due to not applying it very well (e.g., handheld spray bottle that may not have worked the best, may not have sprayed often enough, got started very late after it was running rampant everywhere - which it will be very soon unless major action is taken!), it was also likely that this was just a tough fungus to wipe out.
Does anyone have any advice for how to get rid of my fungal problem? (Note that cost is a factor, so I’m not likely to be able to buy a really good backpack sprayer for example.)
Although in the past I’ve either not sprayed other than for the OMRI-approved sprays last year, I am definitely open to using a stronger, non-organic spray as long as it (a) will be effective and (b) isn’t overly toxic (and yes, I realize that most non-organic sprays aren’t overly toxic).
To successfully fight fungus in my opinion you have to start spraying before it appears. Sprays like Serenade have to be applied every week and after the rain to prevent spores of the fungus to transform in live fungus. As soon as it happens it is almost impossible to eliminate it from vegetables. Some fungus like powdery mildew on peppers integrates into leaf tissue, and killing the fungus(can be done with simple 20-30% milk solution) also kills affected leaves. But if you use this solution on still healthy peppers, no damage occurs, and if you do it regularly the disease can be postponed or even avoided. At this time of the year at least in my zone(5B) fungus starts taking over the garden no matter what. The question is, how fast it is progressing and how much of the crop you will have time to pick before it become fatal to you plants. In any case, removing affected leaves and spraying with preventives(like Serenade) will help a bit. Make sure there is enough air circulating around your plants, no weeds around. Good luck.
Hmm… it sounds like you might be describing different problems for everything. Only powdery mildew would affect all of the plants, and even then I think different species of fungus are probably responsible for infecting different families of plants (tomatoes/peppers vs. Prunus).
On the Carmine Jewels: are you sure it was a fungus and not japanese bettles? Cherries are their favorite food.
Regarding the Carmine Jewels, it was definitely a fungus that defoliated them. I had near zero Japanese Beetles last year (I don’t think I ever actually saw one summer in my garden last summer).
As to the 20-30% milk solution, are you talking about the milk that you drink or something else?
I also meant to add that I’m in Northern Virginia in the South Alexandria area, which is one of the warmest and most humid areas in the Washington, DC suburbs.
Another possible clue as to the type or types of fungus present is that last year it totally devastated my Ozark Beauty strawberries (90% plant fatality rate at a guess) while a couple of other types (didn’t remember exactly what right now) didn’t experience anywhere near the same level of damage.
I didn’t try to identify fungus that affects your garden. I just wanted to show an example why prevention is much more successful approach then combating it. It’s most likely that your garden is affected by many different type of fungus. Many of them look similar on leaves, but actually may be caused by different pathogen. And if the weather conditions are right, then all of them appear in the same time, making it look like it is same issue for all.