Soil fungus

Hi there

I have had a few years of bad trouble with fungus attacking my plants, killing or slowing their growth to nothing. Squashes, melons and watermelons have been very badly affected.

I want to know if I can treat the soil now, before I plant anything - and I swear I will stay away from plants from big box stores.

any early season advice? We still have frosty nights here.
thanks
HeatherY.

Don't be to quick to blame the plants. Remember big box stores have a warranty on their plants. So if they sell a lot of bad diseased plants they pay in the long run. Not saying that it was not the big box store plants that caused the problem, but it could have been so many other things. Don't rule them all out before planting again or you may be right back in the same position. I have bought my share of big box store plants and nursery grown plants and personally I have not been able to tell much difference in the performance, too many nurseries have adopted big box store growing patterns: growing in green houses, forcing plants and fertilizing highly, using growth controlling techniques etc. Not all nurseries do that, but just saying if the plant comes from a nursery or a big box store you can and will have problems with some of them. Maybe have a county agent check the plants and soil and see what is causing the problem, then treat it.

Lots of different types of fungus.
Maybe it really is in the soil, and is not being brought in on the plants.

There are several plant diseases that survive in the soil for years.
People are breeding plants that are resistant to these diseases, and rotating the crops helps.

One example is tomatoes that are resistant to verticillium, fusarium and nematodes. The label will have the letters VFN on it. But other plants can still get these problems. When the same or closely related crops are grown in the same soil each year the pest/disease organisms tend to build up even when some of the plants are resistant. When non-host plants are grown some years then the disease/pest organisms tend to die down.

You can also kill many of the organisms in the soil (good ones and bad) by solarizing the planting area.

So....
This year:
Plant in different areas.
Solarize all the beds that seem to have the worst problems.

Following years:
Rotate through the beds not just crop rotation, but also a month or so of solarizing every few years.
Perhaps a 5 year rotation; 4 years of crops and one year of fallow, with solarizing.

The 3 plants you mentioned that suffered the most all like very rich soil with plenty of humus added, this helps to allow air to circulate around the root area, it allows the soil to hold onto moisture for longer and it helps give nourishment to these very greedy plants.

If you remember when you cut into any of these 3 plants fruit's, there is a huge amount of water / juice that is held within the fruit, this has to be given / held and stored within the fruits to help prevent stunted growth, it allows the fruits to swell and mature as they expand, it also adds to the flavour of the fruit and it's juices. hence the reason a very rich fertile soil is needed (when I was a little girl, my Dad used to plant the seeds of these directly into his compost heap that was well rotted and being saved for winter use, that and his Rhubarb were always the best ever)

Here we also garden by crop rotation as mentioned by Diana, except we do it every year, I work with 4 beds, one bed for Peas, beans and different varieties, next bed No 2, for root veg like carrots, parsnips, beetroot ect, next bed used for Potatoes, salad crops and herbs, all faster growing crops as the potato's need the soil pulled up the greenery as it grows, I dint like growing stuff here that will be disturbed by drawing up the soil for Potato's, the last bed is for seed / nursery use and some herbs that are Perennial (years in the ground.

Onions and Garlic are planted in beside the carrots as the smell of the foliage keeps away greenfly and the early little pests called carrot fly, they smell out the sweet smelling carrot foliage and the onions / garlic helps camouflage that small and protects the crops from being eaten down at the roots when the flies eggs hatch out.

The following year I move round one bed, so the carrot / root veg will be in bed No 3 and all the other crops are moved round one bed too, this helps soil conditions as all these different type of veg have different requirements, like the root veg don't like lime or NEWLY added manures as it splits / forks the roots but the cabbages family, the potatoes and others all need a new conditioned soil for better moisture /feed conditions.
The rotation also prevents fungal diseases taking hold as most of these diseases are produced and harm one particular type of plant, so when you move the crops on, the soil gets a chance to recover / fight or ignore the soil diseases or fungal attacks.

The best thing to do is buy a very cheep soil testing kit, it is idiot proof and not complicated at all, it takes a few min's and once the test is done, you check the colour against the instruction stip on the packet and it tells you what you need to add, alter or can / cant grow without amending the soil.
Naturally it is good to test several areas where you grow veg as there can easy be a difference just a few feet away especially IF you have been growing stuff for several years in the same area, the soil becomes depleted of nutrients so you have to build it up again.
Hope this is of some help to you and things get better with your crops.
Best Regards.
WeeNel.

If WeeNel had a 5th bed, then there would be a 5-year rotation, with one bed getting solarized in the summer so it might have early season or late season crops, but will miss the biggest growing season.

Good points about planting the crops that are OK with fresher compost and manures together in one bed, then follow with plants that prefer better rotted or less fertile soil.

I learned as a child that cabbages COULD get club root and the plants died, or that each spring the carrot fly would lay eggs at the neck of the carrots where the grrn stalks came through the ground so you plant onion or garlic together to distract the carrot fly, Potato's COULD get blight, so by moving the crops in different beds each year, even IF these diseases did strike the previous year, they would NOT affect the other plants being moved to that bed, like Carrots cant get Potato blight, and Potato's cant get Cabbage root rot, so even IF we do get those diseases they wont be able to live in the soil as there host plants are no longer there, the 4 / 5 bed rotation means Potato's are never in the same bed for 4/5 years, and the same for the cabbage family.
On paper this sounds a bit complicated but laid out on the ground, it is dead easy to follow.

PS. Diane, what does the term SOLARIZED mean, I've not heard that terminology here in UK.
Good luck to you all for this years crop.
Best Regards. WeeNel.

Solarize:
To use the energy from the sun to sterilize the soil.

Sunlight goes through clear plastic and heats what is under it the same way it warms your car through the windows.

Here is how I have done it:
1) Rototill, and water the soil.
2) Cover it with clear plastic. Seal the edges by shoveling some soil over them. Create a continuous seal, not just hold down odd spots with rocks or bricks.
3) Let it sit for a month or so. In the hottest part of the year (well, here in sunny California) the heat will go several inches (6"+) into tilled soil and will kill off most bad organisms. Earthworms and other good organisms survive. (I do not know why the beneficial microorganisms survive while the pathogens die off.)
4) When you uncover it, do not rototill or disturb the soil. The pathogens might still be deeper in the soil. It will take them several years to work their way up and into the plant root zone in sufficient numbers to cause problems.

This same concept can be used to sterilize soil that you want to use for starting seeds.
Make an insulated box with a plastic or glass lid. Spread the soil as thin as you can. Dampen in. Cover it. Angle the box toward the sun. After a week or so stir the soil (if it was deep) and dampen it again. Another week or so and it is done. This goes faster in the box because it gets hotter in there.
I used a box like that to melt the wax we got from our bees.

Thanks Diane for taking the time to help describe the term Solarizing the soil.

You are so lucky to have to warm / hot climate you get in CAL, I fully appreciate this method for warming up the soil much quicker and in turn, killing off any diseases that are held withing the soil.

We do the same here BUT, not for solarizing, just to keep the cold elements off the soil for about 3-4 weeks before we begin to plant our seeds, it only gives a couple of weeks head start and to be honest, seeds planted weeks later on open soil normally catch up anyway BUT this cover also helps prevent weed seedlings from sprouting IF black plastic is used.

The other thing we do here in UK is in Autumn, when you tidy out the veg patch or any other soil that will be left barren/ uncultivated soil till following spring, after clear up, we fork over the soil BUT don't break up the large clumps, we take advantage of our very cold weather and allow the frost to help break up the clumps of soil and it also helps kill of a lot of Pathogens or diseases, overwintering soil loving pests that the birds peck out as you dig. any good guy's /bugs get tossed back into the soil out of sight as you dig.

It's just great Diana to learn all the different methods and terminologies we use for similar types of work, but still enjoying the same recreational gardening we do on our little patches of land.

2 years ago my husband and I rented a lovely little cottage in Huntington Beach, then moved along the coastal road and had 4 weeks in total, I loved those huge big clumps of tall Violet Blue flowers that grew along the side of the roads and at a Garden centre (where else when your in lands unknown LOL,) we met some lovely gardeners and staff who were as interested in our garden plants as we were in the diversity of yours. wish we had your warm climate here.
Many thanks for your time and patience, much appreciated always.
Kindest Regards.
WeeNel.

I have visited England. One of the places I liked was Kew Gardens. As you say, when you garden and travel, what else do you see but botanical gardens and nurseries!

Thanks, Diana. thanks Nel, for the discussion.
I did some more reading on DG and seen the advice to do this in August before planting
winter crops. Hmm. The time I have to do this is May. when traveling to UK and France.
It is a two and a half week trip. add up packing and recovery from jet lag and it works out
to three weeks or so which the garden could be under the plastic.
I might do this for weed control as Nel suggests, but I will not use black plastic as
the DG page I read says this does not work to solarize the soil. I don't have my garden on
a bed system because they would be tiny, but I do rotate plants from spot to spot on the annual
side of the garden, with the exception of tomatoes- I plant them with the asparagus.

I thought I would put plastic over most of my garden while away for about three weeks.
Planting a few seeds that want warmer soil to germinate in just a few holes also seemed
a good way to use the time.
thanks
Heather Y.

[quote="Diana_K"]Solarize:
To use the energy from the sun to sterilize the soil.

Sunlight goes through clear plastic and heats what is under it the same way it warms your car through the windows.

Here is how I have done it:
1) Rototill, and water the soil.
2) Cover it with clear plastic. Seal the edges by shoveling some soil over them. Create a continuous seal, not just hold down odd spots with rocks or bricks.
3) Let it sit for a month or so. In the hottest part of the year......