Do I have pests and disease in my garden?
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2014 10:50 pm
I think I might have pests and disease in my garden I'm in south east michigan. I know I have seen a few slugs so I'm going to want to do something about them so they don't get out of control and I end up with tons of them. I had leaf lettuce at the beginning where I first noticed them. But after a week or two I wasn't seeing them any more (night or day). Today I noticed a few on my jalepeno plants. I also noticed a jalepeno pepper here and there that has a hole bore in it but no sign of an insect that made it. I also have sweet banana peppers and green bell peppers but I haven't seen any signs of that with them and they are right next to the jalepeno plants. My broccoli plants have tons of little holes in all of the leaves but I never seen any insect activity on them but I'm assuming that the holes are from insects. The broccoli came out great and I'm still getting offshoots. My dad tells me my tomato plants have a fungus. The leaves are withering and dying. 4 of my 8 plants are nearly dead. I've harvested probably 100 tomatoes so far from them. And have a few dozen more green or just starting to vine ripen on the plants to go. I'd like to avoid using chemicals which is why I'm posting here.
However I wouldn't say I'm 100% organic gardening. I used ortho weed killer near the beginning of starting the garden to deal with a grass starting to grow in the garden problem. Which worked for a time. And about 2 weeks ago the problem cam back and is somewhat out of control now. I has grown where my leaf lettuce was and spread under the tomato and jalepeno pepper plants. I can't spray them with the ortho stuff or anything that I'm aware of without killing off those plants. And my plants are so big that it is pretty much impossible to get the grass from the roots up. I fear at this point even if I could pull it all up root and all that it will just keep growing more every day. Taking all the time I have for the garden in just dealing with the grass. The fertilizer I use I'm not sure if it would be considered organic. They are: osmocote smart release (scotts company) [19-6-12] and vigoro (swiss farms products) [12-10-5]; I also have but didn't use this year jack's classic all purpose (JR peters inc) [20-20-20]. The first two are time released worked into the soil at the beginning of the season according to the packaging and the last one is mixed with water and applied regularly through watering (daily and weekly mix options).
Being new to gardening I didn't prepare myself very well this year. So here I am finding out the hard way. What can I do to take care of and/or prevent these problems? There are probably only about 8 more weeks in the season here. I seem to recall frosts start happening in late october. So everything I learn this year will make my garden all the better next year hopefully.
However I wouldn't say I'm 100% organic gardening. I used ortho weed killer near the beginning of starting the garden to deal with a grass starting to grow in the garden problem. Which worked for a time. And about 2 weeks ago the problem cam back and is somewhat out of control now. I has grown where my leaf lettuce was and spread under the tomato and jalepeno pepper plants. I can't spray them with the ortho stuff or anything that I'm aware of without killing off those plants. And my plants are so big that it is pretty much impossible to get the grass from the roots up. I fear at this point even if I could pull it all up root and all that it will just keep growing more every day. Taking all the time I have for the garden in just dealing with the grass. The fertilizer I use I'm not sure if it would be considered organic. They are: osmocote smart release (scotts company) [19-6-12] and vigoro (swiss farms products) [12-10-5]; I also have but didn't use this year jack's classic all purpose (JR peters inc) [20-20-20]. The first two are time released worked into the soil at the beginning of the season according to the packaging and the last one is mixed with water and applied regularly through watering (daily and weekly mix options).
Being new to gardening I didn't prepare myself very well this year. So here I am finding out the hard way. What can I do to take care of and/or prevent these problems? There are probably only about 8 more weeks in the season here. I seem to recall frosts start happening in late october. So everything I learn this year will make my garden all the better next year hopefully.