Disease and Control Part 1
Your gardens are not always safe from pests, disease, and problems no matter how hard you might try. When a problem arises in the garden, you need a little extra help sometimes identifying what the disease or pest is. In this article, we are going to address a few common problems in the garden so you will have a reference when having a problem in the garden.

Posted Thursday, April 6, 2006

Azalea blight is a disease that not only affects azaleas, but also other large leaved shrubs. Small white or brown areas will appear on the petal sand the leaves, with the petals and leaves then becoming slime like to the touch. Flowers will collapse if you have this disease on your plants. This disease can survive over the winter months. Avoid this disease by not over watering your plants. If you find flowers affected in this manner, pick them and destroy them as soon as possible to save your plants.

Anthracnose is a disease that will make dark circular spots or lesions appear on your plants. The spots will occur on your stems, leaves and even on the produce. Often white or pink spores will seem to ooze out of the lesions. This disease affects many different plants, often during the wet rainy weather. The best way to fight this disease is to destroy the plants that are infected.

Bacterial leaf spot is another disease that will leave small brown or purple colored spots on your plants. The spots often occur on the leaves and the leaves will then die and fall off. Some plants that are most often affected by this leaf spot is the cabbage, turnips and similar plants while still seedlings. The best fight against this disease is to rotate your crops every three to four years, and to destroy those infected plants.

Bacterial wilt is similar to many other diseases we have discussed leave strange colored patches on the leaves of your plants. The plants that are most often infected with this disease are the cucumbers, pumpkins, and some types of squash. To fight the problem that is spread by beetles, cover your plants with a dusting of flour to keep the beetle away.