The week my entire balcony crop got covered in sticky white fuzz

It was about a month ago, right when my tomatoes were starting to set fruit. I noticed a few leaves looking dusty, but thought it was just pollen. Within three days, every single plant - the tomatoes, the peppers, even the basil - was coated. It was powdery mildew, bad. I panicked and sprayed everything down with a mix of 1 tablespoon baking soda, half a teaspoon of dish soap, and a gallon of water. It took two weeks of spraying every other day and removing the worst leaves to get it under control. I think it happened because I was watering at night and the humidity just sat on the leaves. Has anyone else beaten a bad mildew outbreak without losing the whole season?

3 comments

3 Comments

willowc6017d ago

Yeah, watering at night is a total mildew magnet.

nathan28917d ago

Forget mildew, @willowc60. Watering at night just wastes more of it to evaporation before it even hits the roots.

paul2334d ago

But what about the soil? If you water in the sun, the top layer can bake into a hard crust that the water just runs off of. So you're not just losing water to the air, you're also making it harder for what's left to actually sink in. It seems like you need to pick the least bad time of day, not a perfect one.