Diseases

Besides being vigilant of any serious disease outbreaks in your garden and reporting any problems immediately, the most important thing we can do to do prevent disease and keep it from spreading is to practice good sanitation.

• Keep your plants healthy with adequate, but not excessive supplemental nutrition and moisture.
• Keep the green parts of your solanaceae plants well aerated and off the bare soil by mulching, caging and/or staking and tying them up (especially tomatoes).
• Avoid wetting the green parts of the plants when watering, or at least watering them early enough in the day to allow them to dry out before dark.
• Control weeds, which compete for moisture and nutrients and serve as alternate hosts for plant diseases.
• Remove seriously diseased plants and diseased portions of plants by bagging them and disposing of them in your home waste.
• Harvest produce as it ripens because rotting produce can invite a host of disease and insect problems.
• Clean all the soil off borrowed tools and leave it in your own garden to avoid transmitting soil pathogens to other gardens. (The tools will also work better for your fellow gardeners and your courtesy will prolong the life of the tools.)