Mildewed leaves

Ok, "daft" question.
Moving north I met powdery mildew. I mean we get powdery mildew also in Italy of course but not in such amount, and certainly not in august.

Even WEEDS here have powdery mildew, never seen something like this. Most plants just go on living their life, it seems. Theoretically I should not compost affected plants, but seeing that the fields and pastures surrouding me are mildewed too, providing plenty of free spores anyway, is it going to make a real difference if I compost my mildewed zucchini leaves or not?

Really undecided what to do.:confused:

 

I personally dont think it matters Ivory.

Its a problem that occurs when the conditions are right for it, and it happens, its in the air.

Most of the sprays we had that were really effective are now gone, so I just try to avoid it in the first place.

Interesting that you didn't get it in Italy.

I always put it down to plants being dry at the roots.
I'm talking begonias now though.

 

I think it's too dry on top of the plant in Italy for mildews to thrive But we do get mildew in september-october. However I will water the zucchini a bit more next year (without making the leaves wet) and see how they do

Many other plants have a bit of mildew on and off, but seem to get along. Zucchinis were the only serious case, but they were becoming old plants anyway, and they produced so many zucchini that it has been almost a relief to pull them. Just too many, lol.

I looked up some organic way to help control mildew, may be I will try these too.

Thanks for the opinion anyway, I also thought it wouldnot make much difference, but as I said, I never had so much of the bloody stuff before

 

Ivory

Powdery mildew thrives in dry conditions so it's not like mildew in buildings which is associated with dampness.

Like Pete says, dryness round the roots seems to encourage it on many plants but what really puzzled me was how much powery mildew would appear on my old apple tree. It used to attack the new end shoots, just where you'd imagine the best ventilation to be.

I agree it probably doesn't make much difference whether you compost mildewy leaves or not but I still wouldn't do it myself. It would just seem wrong....

 

I don't know, I am very confused about this powdery mildew I guess.

I dragged the zucchini to the far end of the garden where we never really go... In the end I did not put them in the compost... It did seem wrong.

But I will not be too fussy about the occasional leaf, that's all.

 

I think if we only composted healthy stuff, we would have very small compost heaps.

 

That's true!

Anyway, I found this link rather interesting to get clearer ideas about hot-dry/and cool-moist. A picky disease this mildew thingy!

http://www.ipm.uiuc.edu/diseases/series900/rpd925/index.html

 

It says it overwinters in plant debris, if thats the case, maybe its better to compost infected plants rather than just leaving then laying around.
Just a thought.

 

:thumb:This is what I will do:
Me thinks If I pile on it all the nettles I still have around on those damn corpses the pile should grow hot enough to solve the problem for good...

 

Yep, maybe.