So we survived the veg stage in spite of accidentally triggering early flowering in April... by June they were re-vegged phew! I was only planning to grow one of this variety, but then my husband took one of the runty seedlings and put it in the ground next to the rhubarb. He didn't want to let it go to waste. It's a small plant but it is worth noting :-) This is a fast flowering variety, and *almost* keeping pace with the FastBuds fast lowering. This variety has terrible mildew... of all the plants in the garden, this one is the worst. I've had to trim a lot of her fan leaves.
You could also try fermenting milk to create Lactic Acid Bacteria which are why milk works for powdery mildew and mould. U of Hawaii has info pages about how to do it as part of KNF. Iβve had some small bits of mould but itβs mostly under control so I think it helps a lot.
@Northern_Ent, yes! so the deal is that we spray on the milk on a hot summer sunny day... and the lactose and milk protein work their magic. The fermentation takes place once it's on the plant :) So far it's working really well. The leaves went from powdery and grey, to shiny and green. Today it's raining to wash the milk off. I'll evaluate tomorrow when the sun comes out. I'll re-apply the spray on any remaining mildew. Apparently it can take two applications three days apart to see the best results. And they recommend rain in between. I got lucky that the weather is 100% cooperating... sunny and hot... then rain... then more sun and heat in the forecast :-)
I had that last year, mildew all over on my automatics.just because my garden was to filled .
Thsi year i cut off everything what is hundering the airflow. and luckyly no mildew
crossing fingers for your crop
@Mrs_Larimar, Yes... I knew this was a risk due to crowding of big plants an a sheltered part of the garden where there is little air movement. I put in 2 fewer plants than last year... but instead of having more space the plants just grew *BIGGER* LOL... I'll have to do better next year. I'm not really complaining... I'm getting the same size of canopy with two fewer seeds, so that's a good efficiency.
The milk treatment seems to be working! The leaves are nice and shiny today... we put on the milk on a hot summer sunny day. And then two days later it is raining to wash most of it off. In a couple of days I'll treat the plants again to treat the leftover mildew. I'm feeling optimistic.