Growing vegetables is exciting indeed. Planting, harvesting–even weeding can be fun (if you’re creative!). But one thing that isn’t fun is fungus. Yep. You heard me right. Fungus is no fun and it can kill a plant in no time. It’s also a common problem for Florida gardeners because our climate is HUMID. And we have afternoon thunderstorms without warning–another bad deal for our plants, since they already received their daily dose of water.
We can work in harmony with Mother Nature and adjust our watering schedule, but sometimes this isn’t enough. And one day you walk out to find your pumpkin patch is succumbing to the conditions. As organic gardeners, there’s not a whole lot we can do except try our best to prevent such catastrophe. Or react to it as we did this week. The middle school students removed as much of the dead leaves as possible to prevent spreading and allow more sunlight onto to the otherwise healthy leaves. Hopefully, our plants will survive and thrive, but at this point, it’s anyone’s guess.
On a brighter note, our black beans are loving life and I’m loving these photos. Isn’t it amazing? Almost like you can see them actually growing and developing. Way cool.
Our bean fort is beginning to fill in, too. This contraption happens to be big fun, despite its drooping “roof.”
Of course the middle school boys had all sorts of ideas for fixing this drooping issue, but perhaps it’s best to hold off until we have the proper tools and materials (and not borrowing the project materials from fellow students!). 🙂
Another area in need of attention was our sunflowers. Growing wild and wonderful, these babies need support! Enter elementary and the fix is in–we used soft green tape and tied them to the fence for support.
As well as bamboo stakes for those off the fence. Either way will work and help give these gorgeous gals the support they need to grow tall and strong.
Last but not least, our tomatoes needed pinching.
Pinching?
Pinching. In order to increase their vigor you want to pinch these little “suckers” (named as such because they suck needless energy/nutrients from the plants main stems) throughout the life of your tomato plant. Simply spot them and pinch them. Easy!
Our kindergartners finished out the week by planting stevia. Stevia is a natural sweetener and is easy to grow, simple to harvest and a snap to use. In fact, this past spring I used a few leaves from my home herb garden to sweeten the cucumber soup we prepared at school! Yum.
This year I was fortunate to participate in my Granddaughters class garden. It is so refreshing to see how interested the children are in the growing process. Nice article. thanks for sharing
Vicky
So sorry to hear about the fungus on the pumpkin patch. These unexpected problems can be a downer but I’m sure you’ll have good results with the rest of your garden and hopefully, the pumpkins, too.
Thanks, Susan. The toughest part is seeing the disappointment in the kids’ expressions. They are SO looking forward to pumpkins. So we will not dismay but push on and salvage those vines we can! 🙂
Any tips for eliminating fungus would be appreciated!
UGH — they definitely keep coming and reproducing at alarming rates! I have myself scraping egg clusters off most every leaf by the time all was said and done! But did you see my new trick?
Aluminum foil. Yep, it’s supposed to keep the critters away but we shall see. This is only the first week of our experiment but we remain hopeful! Thanks for stopping by!