My war on powdery mildew. With potassium bicarb and sesame oil .

[SmittenGarden]

This is sort of a rolling first week review of my attempt to beat the mildew with sesame oil and potassium bicarbonate. Because before I wasn't able to find any experiences on here with potassium bicarb I though it might be of interest to others.

Ive been waging an unsuccessful war with powdery mildew pretty much since few weeks after i first planted. Being new at growing veggies and gardening its pretty much beaten me.

I had/have three determinate tomato plants in one swc that got hit so and that many of the tomatoes ripen rotten.

I have two zucchini in another container that massive and lovely that were hit first. They got so bad that I'm pretty much expecting them to be goners and bought a new baby zucchini plant that I planted in a gallon container on its own till expecting to have to replace the two big ones. And I have a indeterminate tomato in a swc with a bell pepper and even that tomato (newer than the other three has been hit)

I've tried organocide 3 in 1 but I found that I would spray the plants every day for 3 or 4 days till the mildew had turned brown (I hate using that stuff because its makes me feel yucky from spray back) and then if I left it two or three days the whole zucchini would be riddled again.

Well I wasn't able to go out and spray for a couple of weeks and it gave the mildew an upper hand. My entire zucchini plants were white and fuzzy and we stopped getting flowered and barely any fruit. It was at that point we bought the new zucchini and placed it the other end of our patio. I realized the to,stores were bad too. So my husband helped me prune the tomato plants and the zucchini as best we dared to see if it helped restore at least the odds in our favor. But the next couple of days what we didn't cut because just as riddled.

It was at that point I realized the baby zucchini was covered all the way up its stem on the new flower buds and leaves.

So I tried a 30% milk with water spray. I sprayed the life out of every plant, including baby zucchini...... The next day I went out and saw absolutely no change in the mildew. Only white dried stains on my fruit.
And that's when I began to panic (I've spend a lot of hubby's earning on these fruit and veggies.)

And even though I couldn't find anyone on here who had experience with it I ordered some potassium bicarbonate off of amazon (been looking for it for a while and couldn't find it.)

I found a recipe online for 3 tablespoons of potassium bicarbonate, 3 tablespoons of sesame seed oil and a couple of drops of Castile soap in 1 gallon of water...... So I grabbed a bottle of dynasty from the supermarket and mixed it all up in an old gallon milk container. Shook it up well and sprayed the life out of every one of my fruit and veggie plants last Thursday....(I particularly drenched baby zucchini). I think I used about a half gallon that day. I'm pretty sure I didn't get every speck of mildew on the bigger plants as they were bad and big and I started to cut my hand on the spray bottle.

Next day I cautiously looked at baby zuc

I kid you not there was no white anymore. Just a lot of brown where the white had been. I was gobsmacked. I wish I had taken pictures before and after. Before it was pretty bad and looked like it had had it but now it looked like..... A lot of dead brown and some green but I couldn't find any live mildew anywhere.

I looked at the other plants next...knowing I had missed spots and there were more brown than before and what seemed like less white. But they still had mildew because I missed so much. So I sprayed the other half gallon trying to get as much of what I missed and drenched baby zuc again to be sure. The next day I noted a lot less white fuzz on my plants with a lot more brown.

So I waited to see how long I could go before I needed to spare again.....which was Monday. I saw what I thought were very small white line on the dead edge of baby zuc's leaf. So I mixed up another gallon and had my hubby help me prune some of the dead or really festering bits before I watered and re sprayed another half gallon (which seemed to go further than before.)

It's now Wednesday.....I'm hoping I got so much of the powdery menace on Monday that I can go further than 3 days between sprays. I have to say I was in awe at the change in the mildew after just one spray. It also didn't seem to bother the grasshopper in my big zuc's at all who got drenched twice. (Little git is still out there ) and there's new growth (healthy looking) on my big zucchini. I'm hoping that perhaps they will have new blooms again and fruit. As they seemed to have stopped the other week and I was sure they were goners. It's looking like the mildew has gone down a little on my Tommy's and I am hoping I've saved baby zuc just in time.

I'll post agin the next time I spray. I'm hoping I can at least stretch it out to a weekly preventative spray. As the recipe stated it was for both cure and preventative. I just don't have the time to spray every two days. So fingers crossed this method works