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These Bad Girls - too much rain leads to powdery mildew

When rain is not the gardeners friend.

There's no doubt these girls are struggling.

Growing cucumbers in June on our farm at Rollands Plains, outside Port Macquarie,  is a hard ask at the best of times. In spite of the genetics that help these particular girls do better than most cucumbers in cooler weather, lower light levels (as the days get shorter) means less photosynthesis, and thus less of all the resources they need to grow, fruit, and stay healthy in a less than ideal environment.

Then the double whammy of Alfred and the big wet of 2 weeks ago (we should give that event a name), caused fungal diseases to explode. Without that attack these girls would be doing fine, with fruit production matching photosynthesis -  gradually slowing down the deeper we go into winter.

But now they are really struggling. To the point where I'm not sure it's really worth investing any more time or money in them. But, in spite of the low prospects of  a return on that investment, I'm going to:

  • Prune the worst infected leaves off the vines to try to minimise the number of active fungal spores being released that will cause further infection (done)
  • Try to maintain optimal moisture at the roots, avoiding both too much and too little water
  • Help them out with some liquid nutrition. I will deliver this through the drip irrigation system
  • Spray the leaves and stems with a preparation of H2O2 to try to neutralise as many of the remaining fungal spores as possible
  • Remove all the fruit I don't think will be viable, to take some reproductive pressure off the plants so they can temporarily focus on growing leaves
  • Keep the vines trellised so they are up in good air circulation
  • Remove (or treat with H2O2) adjacent plants who are also infected with fungal disease to limit cross infection. In this case it is a lingering tomato crop also infected with alternaria
  • I would love to clean the plastic roof on the Cubby House where they are growing to increase light levels in there, but I don't think I'll get to that

So , I guess we will see how that all works out!

Good luck with yours...