Sara's Garden MarketSustainable Living, Gardening, Flowers, and Food

Powdery mildew peaks in the fall when temperatures are cooler, the sun’s heat and light is more moderate and less direct, and humidity is still high. The amount of dew that forms during the fall is a lot more than in summer months due to the temperature crossing the dew point at a very low place. This happens in the dark, and we all know fungi love dark and wet so, Fall is it for the fungus to go nuts!

Plants with large broad leaves are susceptible. Such as lilac bushes, roses, cabbage, and broccoli.

There are a few organic methods of protecting against powdery mildew. Here are a few:

1. Make a spray with water and baking soda and spray plants early in the day (***on an over-cast day so that this recipe doesn’t burn your foliage***) so that the leaves are dry before the cool night temperatures come. Here’s a good recipe:
   • 1 gallon of water
   • 1 tablespoon of baking soda
   • 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
   • 1 tablespoon of dishwashing liquid

   This will protect the parts of your plant that have not been infested yet and is preventative only.

2. Neem Oil – apply 70% Neem Oil in mid-summer to prevent, once weekly. If you see some powdery mildew you can start applying it then.
3. Spraying your foliage with tap water from the garden hose at a medium to hard pressure. Summer rains/storms and wind plus direct sunlight keep the powdery mildew from forming in the summer months. So you can re-create some of that in the Fall by spraying plants. Make sure you do this in the morning so the plants are dry by night fall.

You will see a white film coating the top of the leaf. It will be very transparent at first, but as it takes hold it will become more white and apparent. Start treating the plant with one or more methods above immediately in order to save the plant.

Once powdery mildew is present you cannot effectively get rid of it with organic methods. You must remove that part of the plant and GET RID OF IT completely. DO NOT COMPOST! Toss it in the trash! If a large portion of the plant is covered your best bet to contain it, and save other plants from this fungus is to uproot it completely and get it off your property as soon as possible.

This fungus can over-winter in your plant and come back stronger as soon as conditions allow it to start replicating again! Horrible stuff!!!

My 3 year old lilac bush got it last year and I treated it with a baking soda spray. It stopped it from spreading but it had already covered many leaves which were turning yellow and dropping off! I did not know it could survive the winter and come back again or damage the internal plant. The next season the leaves were all strangely shaped and it did not flower. So, I chopped it down to the ground in the hope that some part (the strongest part) would survive and come back as a new baby lilac plant. (I’ll let you know how that goes in the Spring of 2012!)

Good luck with your Fall clean up! It’s time to start your herb seeds indoors if you want nice organic herbs at your finger tips all winter long! You saved some seeds from your cilantro, basil, oregano and thyme plants right?? 🙂

For those of you wondering what the heck to do with all the green tomatoes you harvested look no further! If your counter is cluttered with tons of green tomatoes because you had a recent frost warning this is a great way to use them up!

Looking for more awesome Harvest Recipes? Check out my recent book for free here!

Watering your garden when there might be a frost seems a little backward, but it will protect your plants.

A healthy well-watered plant will do better than a weaker, drier plant will in cooler night time temperatures. You don’t want the plant to be wet, but you want the Earth to be nice and damp when nightfall comes.

All of the processes that the plant uses to take in water and create food for it’s self take energy. When the plant uses it’s energy to take water and create food it releases a small amount of heat. So a plant that is undergoing this process is slightly warmer inside than a plant that is sitting there doing nothing but drying out.

So water your garden early in the day, and allow the plant’s leaves to be dry by nightfall and you should have some added protection against cooler nighttime temperatures.

Happy Autumn!

Sara

When a frost is coming it is important to know which vegetables to harvest first and how to get the most out of your garden at the end of the season, or try to extend it further into the season.

Warm-weather vegetables should be considered first. If frost is a “maybe” you can harvest all the food, and then try covering the plant to save it. If frost is “for sure” you can harvest the food and then in certain cases there are things you can do to still get the vegetables to ripen on the vine, or to get the seeds from the plant even though the vegetables are still immature.

Here is a list of vegetables that will go very quickly in even a light frost:

• Basil (especially sensitive)
• Cilantro
• Tomatoes
• Squash
• Peppers

For each of these you want to harvest ALL the usable plant and vegetables.

If you have all green tomatoes and you were hoping to save seed (which should be taken from 100% ripe fruit) uproot the entire plant and find somewhere to hang it. The plant will die but the tomatoes should still ripen (better and faster than on your counter but that will work too) and you can gather the seeds after they turn red.

To save seed from cilantro and basil if it isn’t ready yet: If there are seeds but they are still green uproot the entire plant and hang upside down until the seeds turn brown and very dry for cilantro and black for basil. You can then save the seeds for next year.

Vegetable plants that might survive, or at least do a little better in a light frost:

• Peas
• Lettuces and Cabbages including Broccoli
• Carrots
• Onions, and other leeks like Fennel
• Certain kinds of green beans/beans

Carrots and onions can even be left for next season and will just start right up growing again next year if you simply leave them in the ground.

Happy Harvesting!!!

-Sara

For more helpful information about all kinds of vegetables check out my Seed-To-Seed Book Club. Get a free gardening book in your email each month for a year!

Parts of Minnesota are under a frost warning tonight.

Here’s what you can do to protect your plants:

• Cover warm weather plants like tomatoes, peppers and squash with bed sheets.
• Water your garden early in the day. You want the plant to be dry when night comes, but you also want the ground to be moist and the plant to be well watered.
• Build a PVC structure and put clear plastic sheeting over it making a greenhouse right over your plants!
• Pot up plants and put inside or in your greenhouse.
• If all other options are not possible harvest every vegetable you can and hope for the best!

I have done 4 of the above. I watered early this morning and all my plants are now dry, and well watered. I spent most of the day making pesto from my basil and freezing it. Basil is especially vulnerable to frost damage. I also harvested every descent sized tomato regardless of color. I make 2 quarts of salsa and froze that too. I potted 2 tomato plants and put them in the greenhouse. I also covered another tomato plant, my eggplant, and one bell pepper plant with bed sheets.

Now all we do is wait and see. It is QUITE cold out there compared to 4 days ago when it was in the 90’s!!

Talk to you in the morning. I would love to hear how everything looked in the morning for you all! Post something in the forum for it.

Sara Murray

Hi everyone,

It’s almost time to start using our greenhouses again. Now is the time to clean it out and gather supplies for the coming winter.

• Wash down the sides carefully and make sure you dry with a fan after.
• Sort all your containers, and see if you need to get more. I usually ask for seedling and small plastic containers from my local free market online.
• Wipe down your shelves
• Gather any new supplies you will need in the coming year, lights, light fixtures, seed bed warmer pads, shade cloths, fans, space heaters, vents, thermometers, humidifiers etc etc etc…
• Repair any tears or small holes
• Make a plan to get your electricity and make it water proof.
• Make sure tie-downs are still good, or repair them.

Happy greenhousing!

Sara

How to harvest and what to do with all those vegetables when your area gets a frost warning.

We have our first frost warning of the season tonight in Minnesota. It’s supposed to get down to 35 degrees Fahrenheit with scattered frost. Some vegetables can withstand a light frost; beans, peas, onions, and carrots will all be fine. However, there are plenty of plants that will turn to mush at the first sign of frost; basil, tomatoes, and squash probably won’t survive.

One thing you can do is build a structure around the plants you want to save and cover it with greenhouse plastic, or buy some frost cloth and cover the plants overnight when it gets down to the coldest temperature of the day.

The other chore to do when frost is on the horizon is harvest the vegetables from the garden and start cooking, canning and freezing.

Here is my chore list for today: Harvesting all Tomatoes, Peppers, Cilantro and Basil and how I cook or freeze it for the winter.

• Harvest ALL Basil and make pesto, freeze in batches for later.
• Harvest all Tomatoes except super green ones to ripen on the counter top.
• Harvest all ripe Tomatoes and Cilantro and make into salsa and freeze.
• With extra Tomatoes cut off stems, place on cookie sheet and put in the oven at 375 for 10 minutes, let cool and peel. Then you can place the entire peeled tomato(es) in freezer bags and freeze for later.
• Harvest all green beans, cook lightly and freeze.
• Harvest all peppers and either peel like the tomatoes and freeze or freeze whole. Red bell peppers I peel and freeze, green bell and jalapeno I just put in freezer bags raw and whole.

Happy harvesting, cooking and freezing.

Seed saving has started here as frost will be coming within a month or sooner. So I will start posting how to save the seeds from the plants you want to start over the winter to have again next year.

How to save pepper seeds:

1. Wait for the pepper to ripen all the way. Even most green bell peppers will turn red when they are totally left to ripen. If you think a frost will kill the plant up-root the entire plant and hang upside down in a cool location until the pepper ripens, and then harvest the pepper for seeds.
2. Cut off the bottom of the pepper and scrape out the seeds onto paper towel to dry.
3. Dry for several days, shaking every day or so to loosen if they stick together.
4. Label and save in a seed packet.

How to save tomato seeds:

1. Wait for the tomato to ripen all the way. If you think a frost will kill the plant up-root the entire plant and hang upside down in a cool location until the tomato ripens, and then harvest the tomato for seeds.
2. Cut the tomato in half the short/across way. Scoop out seeds and jelly into a glass container you can see in. If you are only doing a small amount (1-2 tomatoes) add a little bit of water to the glass.
3. Cover the glass with a paper towel.
4. Leave on your counter for 3-4 days, stirring once per day. A fungus will develop which will eat the jelly off the seeds and also release antibiotics that will keep the seeds and tomato plants healthy later on.
5. After 3-4 days pour more water into the glass, almost to the top. Stir very gently and that will release the rest of the tomato parts from the seeds. Viable seeds will sink to the bottom of the glass, anything that floats to the top can be carefully poured off.
6. Strain and then dump the good seeds out onto a paper towel. Dry them for several days or until you can crack one in half when you try to bend it = it’s too dry to bend, so it just cracks and snaps in half.
7. Label and save in a seed packet.

How to save green bean seeds:

1. When you are harvesting to eat and some get too large to be tasty just leave them on the vine.
2. They should have nice large seeds in the pod by the time a frost comes, if they don’t you may want to pull the entire plant and hang upside down to ripen and dry.
3. If you get some nice large seeds in the pods by the time a frost comes just leave them on the vine until early next spring.
4. In spring time wait for a lot of dry weather, and almost all snow (if you have some) is gone. Harvest the seed pod which should be nice and brittle and brown.
5. Spread the seeds on paper towel for a few days just in case there’s some moisture left in them from the temperature change.
6. Label and save in a seed pouch.

If you buy nice heirloom seeds that are NOT GMO you really shouldn’t have to ever buy them again. Just save the seeds and grow them again next year!!!

Happy seed saving,

Sara

So last year I bought a small greenhouse and I really loved using it for my seeds and plants last Spring. So, now I am starting to think Fall. Our night time temperatures are getting lower and I can sometimes smell a little Fall in the air.

So here’s the next thing I am going to do. When the temperatures really start to plunge and the first frost threat comes I am going to pot up and stake my best tomato plants and put them in the greenhouse to see how long I can get them to keep producing! I might do this with my eggplant I’ve been raving about as well.

I hope they keep going!!! I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for stopping by

-Sara

So, the time has come to discuss the issue of frost and how we (in the North) are going to extend this season and try to get our tomatoes to ripen on the vine!!

Last year I tried to create a greenhouse with greenhouse plastic, PVC pipe and packing tape around my entire garden. It was working great until a wind storm in early October when it all came crashing down and had to be taken down and off of the garden.

This year I plant to eventually pot up the tomato plants that are doing well and put them in the greenhouse! (The actual greenhouse that I bought in the early Spring.) But before I need to do that there are plenty of warm days left. When day-time temps get below 55 I will move them to the greenhouse. Over night temps are sometimes dipping into the 40’s now though.

So, I am going to go to my local hardware store and get some frost cloth. I have my tomatoes on very tall stakes, and I am going to get a few more that are even taller. I will drape the frost cloth over the stakes and hope for the best!! (Pictures coming soon.)

Wish me luck – I still have several dozen tomatoes in the garden, as well as jalapeno and bell peppers, and 4 lovely eggplants I need to save!