One Vengeful Zucchini

In a previous post about two weeks ago I told you I had replanted my zucchini three times only to have my husband till it up after the last planting then dump a bunch of manure on top of that spot.  Well, this past weekend I was out in the garden and I noticed that one of the plants had sprouted!

Zucchini, of course, have the reputation of being prolific.  I’m a bit worried to see how this one produces after having been tilled up and having manure dumped on it… it is going to be ready for some payback!  Bear in mind it is also growing in a pile of manure.  It is certainly wasting no time… this photo was taken on Sunday:

This photo was taken this morning, Tuesday:

That’s a lot of new growth in just two days.  We’re in trouble!

It’s not just that zucchini that’s looking awesome.  I got out and weeded on Sunday after the NASCAR race and got just about the whole garden cleaned up.

My cucumbers have really taken off over the last week or so and they’re starting to get a few flowers.  It seems like every morning when I go and pick my kale I have to train another cucumber vine or two up the trellis.

I haven’t showed you much of this corner…

The cabbages and Brussels sprouts are looking fantastic.  The three little tomato plants are the volunteers I found among my beans that I transplanted a few weeks ago.  They’re growing nicely.  I didn’t cage them right away because I didn’t want to go through the effort of climbing into the back of the shed to pull out the cages before I was certain they were going to survive, but it looks like I should get on that sooner than later now.

My other tomatoes… oh where to do I start…

They’re actually starting to look a little better.  Yes.  Better.

(As with the peppers, the straw covering has done pretty well at keeping the weeds at bay, but it sure makes it tough to get a clear photo!)

After consulting with Google and YouTube, I diagnosed my tomatoes with early blight.  Even though I’d been more on top of applying fungicide this year than ever before, it still managed its way into my crop.  To treat it, it seemed to be generally recommended that you trim off the affected branches and apply a fungicide containing copper.

I was hesitant to trim off all the affected branches because on a few plants there wouldn’t be much left!  And I didn’t want to stress an already diseased plant.  So what I did, especially on the most diseased plants, was to only take off only a couple branches at a time over the course of a couple days.

I found my copper fungicide at Wal Mart.  Copper fungicide sounds a little scary, but the stuff I got is actually approved for organic use.  If you want to look it up, it is “Copper Fungicide” by Bonide.  One thing I like better about this fungicide as opposed to the one I was using is that it is a better solution that sprays in a fine mist.  My other stuff ended up in chalky globs.  That fine mist very easily gets onto the undersides of the leaves where the fungus likes to fester.

My first application of the fungicide was on Friday afternoon.  About an hour after application my husband decided it would be a good time to water the garden.  So much for that!  I was going to reapply Sunday at the end of my stint in the garden but it was really windy, so I waited until Monday evening for another application.  The label says every 7-10 days, but as diseased as my plants are and with my husband watering right after the first application I decided a shorter interval was warranted this time.  It also had rained very early Sunday morning.

I last applied the old fungicide last Wednesday, so all the bright green growth beyond the chalky white coating is new growth in the past week.  There are even some new flower buds on the more affected plants!  Granted, I removed a considerable amount of branches, but the plants overall appear a lot less yellow than they were just a week ago.  The new fungicide seems to be working well.  The blight was getting very aggressive and at the very least it has kept it from spreading further.  It is supposed to be really hot here the next few days, so we’ll see if these plants continue to rebound or if the heat does them in for good.