For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
my fix for powdery mildew (it's not milk)
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I used to get powdery mildew on my zucchini and winter squash every summer when I lived on the coast in Southern California. Now that I'm in Central Oregon, my squash have so far been okay, but my bee balm plants usually get hit hard. Powdery mildew spreads fast across plants, and if you let it go unchecked, it can stunt plant growth and reduce your yield, often leading to poor fruit quality. The chalky white coating typically starts showing up around this time and worsens by late summer, so if you see those first signs of infection (which look like someone just sprinkled flour on the leaves), don't wait too long to take care of it! The most common home remedy you'll find online is a DIY milk spray, which kinda sounds like one of those gardening myths that simply get repeated with no basis in fact. You know I love to break down gardening myths and try to get to the truth of such things, so I did a little digging to find out exactly where this idea came from. (And does it actually work?) Seasonal tipsFinal week for walking onion orders!Grow one of my favorite perennials, Egyptian walking onions, in your own garden this fall. These rare and beautiful plants will give you endless green onions from spring through fall (and even winter in mild climates). Or, harvest the whole plant for its shallot-like bulb. I have a limited supply of organic bulbils (seeds) ready to plant now and available for shipping throughout the USA. (They're collected from my own garden in Central Oregon!)
​Read my growing guide here. (They're super easy to grow in USDA zones 3–10 and come back every year!) P.S. Stop powdery mildew before it gets worse this summer. (Plus the organic sprays that actually work to control it.) |
Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."