Squash, Zuke, Pumpkin leaf mold ?

[parker34]

Howdy
I have 2 hills of Yellow Squash, 1 Zuke, and one mystery vine coming out of my compost, I think it might be some kind of Pumpkin.
I am getting alot of the white mold spots on the Yellow Squash leaves, some on the Zuke leaves, and a little on the Pumpkin leaves.

Can I use the same milk solution to treat all 3 types of plants?
Can someone provide me a recipe for the solution? What type of Milk should I use?
Application tips?

I'm sure there is another thread out here somewhere, just couldn't find it..

Thanks again!

[rainbowgardener]

It's powdery mildew, which all those cucurbits are quite susceptible to. Yes, you can use the milk solution on all of them. Any where from 10 % milk to 50-50 milk/ water is probably ok, any kind of milk. It is the lactobacillus you need. So I usually add a spoonful of yoghurt with active cultures and let stand at room temperature for a few hours. Spray including undersides of leaves

You can alternate this with a baking soda solution (tablespoon of baking soda and a little bit of liquid soap in a gallon of water) or 3% hydrogen peroxide straight from the bottle.

Remove the worst affected leaves first. Don't water leaves (just the soil). Mulching between plant and soil helps.

[parker34]

Thanks RBG! I removed the bad leaves this morning and hopefully will be able to get the remaining sprayed after work. After removing the bad leaves, I wish I would have done this a long time ago as I must have removed 30% of the leaves...

The plants are producing nicely, but I would have to imagine they would eventually weaken if I did nothing.

Side note: I put some home-made compost at the base of one of the two Yellow Squash hills a couple of weeks ago. It is crazy the difference between the two hills. The leaves on the hill that got the compost are easily 2x the size of the other hill that got none. Love that compost!! I'll have to give a shovel full to both of them now.

Thanks again!

[rainbowgardener]

Always fun when people do the experiments - leave some untreated so you can see the difference!

[parker34]

Sorry Forgot to ask before. Should the leaf stem of the moldy leaves be taken too? I noticed that some of the stems have the mold on them as well.

[parker34]

One more question on this, then I swear I am done. How often should I be spraying the milk solution on the leaves? Daily? Weekly?

[rainbowgardener]

not rocket science ... every week or two or after it rains.