A couple of "dumb" mistakes made this season

1) Re-using nylon stockings to tie up tomato plants.  Had some diseases last year and since they were the same diseases this year, the diseases could have been (probably were) carried on the stocking ties.

2) had a couple of extra sunchoke tubers and "stuck them" in two beds - the silly plants are over 12 ft tall and blooming. Pretty flowers!!  But someone noted that they are difficult to totally remove from a site. This might not be a biggie because those two beds have garden soil in them and the soil will be replaced with MM in the spring.

Hello Judy,

Mistakes help us better ourselves. Nobody's perfect, so keep up the good work.   

As part of Fall clean-up, I'm washing all the plastic ties, labels, netting, trellises, etc. before storing for winter. This may be a futile effort to minimize starting off next year with less disease problems, but at least everything will "seem" clean. I don't even want to list the mistakes I made this summer!

sanderson wrote:As part of Fall clean-up, I'm washing all the plastic ties, labels, netting, trellises, etc. before storing for winter.  This may be a futile effort to minimize starting off next year with less disease problems, but at least everything will "seem" clean.  I don't even want to list the mistakes I made this summer!

Always nice to start with a "clean sheet". I feel sure it makes a difference so I try to clean everything as I put it away for the next five months.
Which reminds me I had better clear out my garden shed as well before it gets to cold or wet. Winter always gets me wishing I had done a bit more but I bet everyone else feels the same.

Potting up seedlings and plants in 4x4 pots into larger pots with MM, a small part of which was compost from last year. Well, last year we had lots of diseases, including late blight. Not smart. I almost never used to lose transplants. I lost many this year. I won't be doing that again.

I'll pick something else dumb.

Kelejan wrote:. Winter always gets me wishing I had done a bit more but I bet everyone else feels the same.

+1
Marc,  Yes, we can all pick something else dumb! I started to steam bake some of the used MM I dumped from finished pots to refill the pots with new plants this spring.  It was so tedious and the oven was too hot for the weather, so I stopped.  I'm thinking I will steam bake the used MM for my seedling pots come Feb 2015.  I don't care if I kill beneficials as long as I kill bad stuff.  The seedlings don't need much nutrient at the beginning but the leaf hoppers with their curly leaf disease wiped out so many seedlings.

sanderson, how do you get through more than a fraction of your soil doing that? I have so much MM and potting soil it seems it would take hundreds of hours ... heck, just getting through a single 5-gallon bucket's worth would take many hours, no?

Aluminum (turkey) baking pans and covered with aluminum foil.  Make sure there is enough moisture for hot steam, add a cup or two of water.  425*F for 30 min.  Dump to cool, repeat.

Only the pots, not the beds! Like I said, I stopped doing it for the big pots. Now I'm only thinking of doing it for the seedling cups. I would like sterile medium but with a little nutrients available after it gets wet again.

Do you all wash your materials (labels, pots, etc) in just soapy water or do you add chorox type bleaches to sterilize?

I do not know what you are supposed to do.  But I rinse the dirt off the posts, trellis etc., then lay them on the gravel driveway and spray with 50/50 water and bleach.  Let them sit a while, then rinse off with water and let dry.

Labels and seedling pots - just soapy water
Trellises - Alcohol and water spray, then Neem oil spray.
Netting and sheer curtain shade cloth - washing machine
Scissors and pruning sheers - alcohol spray between uses.

Is alcohol better than bleach.  What is the best thing to do.

Bleach, a strong oxidizer, is #1. Think Ebola or HIV.

But 50% alcohol, Neem and soapy scrub are all I am willing to deal with around the beds.

I just brush it all off. I do wash pots, typically with plain water, but I don't have any disease problems currently.

I'm sure not in opposition to cleanliness, however, my wife will tend her flowers with her tools, when done she'll wash them all in a sterile soution.
Then the next day go back and work again using those tools in the same soil  ??????
If the soil/MM has a disease how then will a clean garden tool keep it from staying ?
The only cleaning I do is maybe flush my pot/s out with water in the spring...
Could it be that all the little bad germs are attracted to the clean tools and cling to them when finished ?

Here is my two cents -

Here in Fayette County GA, I get a lot of diseases all summer long every year.  Early Blight and downy mildew are killers and consistently in my garden.  Every year when I take a leaf into the extension office to get an accurate diagnosis, they always tell me to do one thing to keep the disease from spreading.  If you are clipping diseased leaves off a plant, sterilize your clippers after each cut.  They said a 10% bleach solution should be used.  I use a 50% solution.   

Based on that information, I sterilize everything after each plant is cleaned up.  That goes for washing my nylon netting, tulle and row covers.  Sterilizing my trellis supports, twist ties and planting containers, using sterile seed starting soil and not buying tomato transplants from a retail store.  Next year I intend to buy a cheap pair of scissors and hang one pair from each tomato cage (I know that is extreme, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do).  I also use a 3 year rotation when planting.

The first year all my spring tomatoes died by the beginning of July, last year they made it until the beginning of August.  This year I still have 3 tomato plants (out of 15 plants) that have not yet completely died from disease.  Next year I will rip out any tomato plant that shows any sign of disease and plant another tomato plant in a different location. 

Every year my cucumbers die of downy mildew about mid season. 

So I am going to draconian methods to keep diseases at bay for cucurbits and tomatoes.

I need clarify a few terms and misconceptions.

Sterilization and disinfection are not synonymous.
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Disinfect_vs_Sterilize

You will never, ever maintain a sterile field in the garden.

The other thing is to know and understand the what, where and how of the diseases you are dealing with.

Judy I wonder if in your original post you were referring to blight when you mention your assumption that it carried over from last year on nylon stockings.

Blight is not harbored on inanimate vectors such as nylon stockings. It needs a living host. The fungus thrives in habitable conditions. IT does not survive freezing temperatures unless it's on living tissue (potato tubers). http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/lateblight_tomato.htmwww.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/lateblight_tomato.htm

Thanks for the info, Camprn

I was very lucky - no late blight.

But, I did have a couple of tomato leaf diseases - Septoria leaf spot &/or early blight.  Since these overwinter in plant debris, I did wonder about stocking ties carrying spores, this season.

Anthracnose showed up in later Aug/early Sept on the tomato fruit.

 

The 10% is more than adequate.  The more bleach is diluted, the more effective and less corrosive it is.  Sounds counter-intuitive, but adding more water creates more hypochlorous acid, the actual killing chemical.*

Chlorine plus water makes hydrochloric acid (HCl) and hypochlorous acid (HClO).  

   Cl2 + H2O = HClO + HCl

*Fair, G. M., J. Corris, S. L. Chang, I. Weil, and R. P. Burden (1948). "The behavior of chlorine as a water disinfectant". J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 40: 1051–1061

The following article indicates one teaspoon per gallon to disinfect clean (grease and solid-free) surfaces.
 
http://web.uri.edu/foodsafety/sanitizing-solutions/

PS Retired health inspector of public swimming pools, restaurants, public water systems, etc. I included sources so everyone won't think I was pulling this stuff out of my gardening hat.

I don't use bleach any where or on anything in or related to the garden. I spray my scissors and pruners with alcohol after using on plants with spider mites, aphids or PM, after something with a problem. Or, after pruning the roses. Likewise, Neem or alcohol on trellises with SP, aphids or PM right after ripping out the plants. I can't stop them from coming back the following year, but what the heck. Big pots get a blast of water from the hose.

sanderson wrote:The 10% is more than adequate.  The more bleach is diluted, the more effective and less corrosive it is.  Sounds counter-intuitive, but adding more water creates more hypochlorous acid, the actual killing chemical.*

Chlorine plus water makes hydrochloric acid (HCl) and hypochlorous acid (HClO).  

   Cl2 + H2O = HClO + HCl

*Fair, G. M., J. Corris, S. L. Chang, I. Weil, and R. P. Burden (1948). "The behavior of chlorine as a water disinfectant". J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 40: 1051–1061

The following article indicates one teaspoon per gallon to disinfect clean (grease and solid-free) surfaces.
 
http://web.uri.edu/foodsafety/sanitizing-solutions/

PS  Retired health inspector of public swimming pools, restaurants, public water systems, etc.  I included sources so everyone won't think I was pulling this stuff out of my gardening hat.

+1

Great information, Sanderson!

Some late blight info. http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/lbfaq.pdf

Some early blight info.
http://www.extension.org/pages/29878/early-blight-management-for-organic-tomato-production#.VCWbBPldWSo


http://extension.umaine.edu/ipm/ipddl/publications/5087e/

http://buckshort.blogspot.com/2009/09/can-i-compost-those-diseased-tomato.html

Camprn - many thanks for the info on early blight.

Since the causal agent for EB doesn't need a living host to overwinter, it sounds pausible that my tomato tie-up method "could" transfer the spores to new plantings.

Your thoughts, please.