After work yesterday, I took myself off into my garden just to have a look at how things are doing. I found a couple of things that may become an issue at some point, but I am hoping thats not the case! I also just enjoyed being in my garden.
The first thing that was a concern is the fact that I found a couple of my tomato plants had some powdery mildew on their leaves. It was only the faintest hint, but I don’t want it to get out of control. I promptly removed all leaves that were affected. Aside from using some sort of chemical if it reappears, then ensuring leaf removal and good airflow and space between plants, there isn’t much you can do. I am hoping that it is now under control, but I’ll have to continue having a good look around my garden every day to keep my eye out for any more.
A couple of my Brussels sprouts plants are affected by cabbage leaf miner. This won’t kill the plants, but it looks a bit ugly-not that I’m growing sprouts for their looks! Leaf miners lay eggs on the underside of the leaves, so one method of control is to brush the underside of the leaves to remove them, hopefully preventing further leaf damage. There can be several generations a year if you aren’t careful, that can take only a few weeks if its warm enough. From a brief bit of reading last night, there is no real method of chemical control listed, but I wouldn’t be using them anyway. From the same reading that I did, prevention states that you need to control weeds (why wouldn’t that be happening anyway?). Also stated in the prevention section is that you should be careful if taking cuttings from an infested plant-which is a little strange in this context. Brussels sprouts are not plants you would take cuttings from-it’s a food crop used as an annual. If taking cuttings, you would not take them from a plant that is infested with pest or disease, that is just plain old bad practice. An odd thing to put.
Now for my little bit of a geeky thing. I love just watching the germination of seeds as they come up through the soil. From watching seedlings, brassicas are always really quick to germinate and usually first when I’ve sown a few different things. Beetroot, peas and beans are often quick too. From the seeds sown last Sunday, several brassicas are up and away while the peas or beans have appeared (can’t tell which yet, I forgot the labels). Either way, I just love watching them appear and grow!
Another thing that I saw yesterday was that the Brussels sprouts that I planted with the tomatoes has no leaf miner damage. Whether that’s because tomatoes are offensive to leaf miner or that they haven’t seen this plant yet, it has seemed to help reduce a pest problem. Reading around stuff like permaculture and ways of using less chemicals in your garden, there is quite a bit of stuff saying that having a mix of plants relatively close together is more beneficial than being really rigid with straight rows of tomatoes that are next to pumpkins or whatever. Of course, you need plants of the same species near each other for fertiliseation purposes, if you are growing veg especially, but I don’t think you need to be too strict with your species separation.
With that, I’ll leave it for today. Happy gardening.
