Sad day in the garden... Help!

Okay, so any who know a little about me know this is my first year gardening. I need help figuring out what is going on. It is a very sad day in my garden. We had rain Friday, Saturday and Sunday so I didn't do much in the garden other then just peak for new sprouts. Yesterday was over cast and cool and since we had had rain and the soil still felt moist I didn't water. Today when out I found a sad state. Do I have bugs or mites or something? Did the roots get to much water over the last few rainy days?

Take a look:


zucchini planted from starter has spots on most the leaves.


These are my baby zucchini I planted from seed, they seem fine. I also have two other zucchini starters from the same nursery as the bigger one pictured first, above, planted a week after and they are fine too (ran out of memory on my camera so didn't get pictures of those).


This tomato plant also show 'dry spot' on some of the leaves and curling of the edges of the leaves.


But this tomato plants looks okay.


This cucumber plant looks all but dead.


This cucumber is planted in next square and seems better, but also has a few 'dry spots' on the leaves.

Also a few of my pepper plants have chew marks on a few leaves. HELP!! I need to figure out what is wrong before the whole garden goes to waste. (knocking on wood, turning in circles, throwing salt over my right shoulder, not walking under ladders)

I've heard a mild soap highly diluted with water or tea made from chewing tabaco can be sprayed on plants as a bug deterrent. Also recently bought citrus "Advanage" organic cleaner and the sales lady said you can spray plants as a bug deterrent but she didn't specify vege plants and I seem to think she was talking about flower bed plants.

Sad, sad day...

My neighbor is out of town... I just ran over and peaked in her garden and she has the same thing happening to her zucchini and tomato plants too.

I have the same situation..My beans look like your first picture. I'm about to pull them all up and replant. I also came home today to find little green caterpillers all over my tomatoes. In one days time they had turned the leaves on one tomato to lace. I found one green tomato with a hole in it and it was full of the critters. I spent an hour tonight spraying BT all over everything!! I hope its still good, I bought it last year. I also noticed that one of my crookneck squash was nice and green like I left it this morning, and the other one was yellow all over. I've been examining them daily for squash bug eggs and picking them off.. guess I missed some....oh well...
Don't give up !! Gardening is a lifelong learning process... Good Luck !!

jinx wrote:I've heard a mild soap highly diluted with water or tea made from chewing tabaco can be sprayed on plants as a bug deterrent.

Please don't spray tobacco products anywhere near your plants. You can give them the tobacco mosaic virus. It is most likely to affect tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers but is also occasionally found in spinach, muskmelons, squash, cucumbers, and several flowers. It is the most persistent plant virus known, and can live 50 years in plant residue. Once it is in your soil, the soil must be steam treated to get rid of it. One plant can affect any other that it touches, and even your tools must be boiled for five minutes to rid them of the virus. Bleach won't kill it. It doesn't kill plants but stunts their growth, reduces yield, and makes poor quality fruit.

You can also spread the virus by touching cigarettes, cigars, or pipe tobacco and then touching plants, so smokers should wash hands well in strong detergent before working in their gardens.

ander217 wrote:Please don't spray tobacco products anywhere near your plants. You can give them the tobacco mosaic virus.

Good to know. I didn't like the sounds of that any way.

Have you heard anything about soap? I just found a recipe on line that uses baking soda and soap in a water you mist on your plants for fungus (after removing the affected leaves). I don't even know if that is what it is, but I'm desperate to try something.

Everything looks a little better this morning. The cucumber plant is standing up again, but still has curled edges on most of the leaves. The zucchini seems greener and the leaves grew over night, but still has those dry spots on some leaves.

I was hoping I'd get more feedback on ideas of what it could be and how to treat it. I guess I'm going with the fungus treatment and hope for the best. The fungus treatment recipe was specific to the zucchini, I wonder if it would be okay on the cucumber and tomato?? sigh, decisions, decisions...

I can't find my book, did Mel cover stuff like this in the book?

So I've been researching and although fungus seemed to be my conclusion from last nights quick search I am now also toying with the idea of aphids and ear wigs (which the neighbor dang apricot tree attracts. I HATE APRICOTS AND EAR WIGS!!).

I found a site that gives home remedies for a lot of common garden pests. So which one do I try first? Maybe a combination of a few...

Check this out:
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pdf/ec/ec1586.pdf

I'm having similar problems with my tomatoes, zukes and watermelons. I found something online called Neem Oil that I am going to try this weekend to remove fungus which I understand can be contracted by the air. Let's hope that it works. I also understand that watering in the mornings without getting water on the leaves if at all possible may help. Watering the leaves exacerbates the problem, and watering at night when the sun is not out may also be a culprit.

I'll repost once I have tried the Neem Oil.

Good luck!

Jeff

I feel your pain, Jinx. My garden looks pretty sad this year, too. We've had a more than 3.5 inches of rain above the average since June 1st. I took the leaves of some of my poor little plants to the Nursery and was told they had a fungus infection. Also that there is a L-O-T of fungus around the area this year, because of the high volume of rain we've been having.

Brought home the fungicide they recommend as well as an organic fertilizer and gave everything a good dose a couple of days ago but we had another 2.5 inches of rain last night. So at this point, I'm just in 'wait and see' mode myself.

Not sure of your weather in UT this season, but maybe too much moisture is a part of the problem in your garden, too.

We are having a heck of a time with what we think is earwigs. I know for a fact we have earwigs (and a lot of them) but I am not positive if they are the true cause of the annihilation of several varieties of plants. I saw (and got rid of the) aphids. I occasionally see spider mites. We go to bed at night and the plants are fine. We get up in the morning and what were once leaves look like lace doilies. I have tried dish soap and water, cinnamon, and insecticidal soap (I forgot peppermint oil & water). Sadly I have had to resort to harsher methods to avoid everything being totally being destroyed.

Oh, gosh, I HATE earwigs!!! I found one in an herb planter the other day, I am beginning to think that is what is eating my basil there. What it is it about direct-seeded plants that seem much more immune to bug problems than transplants? I have much tinier, more tender, tasty (heirloom) basil that are direct seeded and look just about perfect... while the large basil in that planter is getting shredded. Go figure.

I bought a honeydew melon plant yesterday on a whim. It was getting dark so I figured I would plant it today. Well when I went to go plant it this afternoon, an entire leaf was down to its skeleton! This is war!!! The stupid ants ate a ton of my strawberries and now earwigs have accounted for at least 10 deaths throughout the rest of my garden. I am developing a twitch whenever I see or hear "earwig"

auntij wrote: This is war. (snip) I am developing a twitch whenever I see or hear "earwig"

Is it a trigger finger twitch, auntij? (grin) You're message made me laugh ... which scared the cat off my lap. Thanks for a great start to the day. (Not that your problems are funny)

Bugs haven't been too bad in my SFQ box this year, but my Grandkids started 30+ sunflowers from seed, with just about 100% germination. Between the slugs, bugs, and Daddy doing an "oopsie" over-spray on the "poison poke berry" (poke weed) they're down to about half of them still living and growing.

My vine plants (cukes and pumpkin) aren't doing much ... they're yellow leafed, stunted and just look sad. Though I'm sure it's completely because I bought them on a whim, at the Grandkids' insistance, with no plan of where the heck to put them and they lived in their little Nursery pots until about a week or so ago. Then they were just stuck in the ground where ever I found a rip in the weed cloth, because ~I~ felt too terrible watching the poor things die a slow death. I did give them some of the organic fertilizer we brought home the other night ... maybe it'll help.

Holy cow....I would have never thought to look for THOSE as a garden pest... DANG....saw a ton of those in my garden few days ago....never even thought twice about it...now I have to figure out what to do. So far I am not losing anything due to munching...but I better prevent....

Please don't feel bad for having a good chuckle! You have to keep humor or else anger and frustration takes over. We laugh at the situation all the time, in fact today while weed wacking an evil grin came over my face and my other half knew I had come across an earwig. Sadly that earwig won't be joining us for dinner tonight Muhahaha