Vigilance is required to keep your vegetable garden free from disease. Using a broad-based effort that combines various methods makes this chore easier.
Selecting proper seed and preparing the soil are a good beginning. Select healthy plants if you are planning to transplant. This keeps disease from being introduced and multiplying. Uproot diseased plants to prevent further infection.
Watering early in the day is usually the most appropriate time. Leaves then have time to dry before overnight temperatures settle in. The spread of disease can be influenced by your watering practices. If water splashes off one diseased plant onto another plant, then the disease plant may infect the healthy plant. Rainfall can produce the similar situation. Be sure to space your plants out.
Also, viruses can be spread by insects who carry them from one plant to the next. Controlling the insect population benefits you exponentially. There are also ways that gardeners and animals can spread disease. Gardeners gloves and the legs of rabbits can carry tobacco mosaic virus, for example.
Keeping the garden well weeded will lower the prospect of disease. Keeping the area attractive turns out to have health benefits, as well. Many organisms thrive on weeds, then move onto your vegetables. They can be carried by wind, insect, water movement and other means.
Controlling various disease can be helped if you are able to identify the signs of these diseases.
When the out edges of lettuce touch the ground, lettuce mold can appear as a wet rot. The Sclerotinia mold is white and Botrytis mold is gray. The problem can be contained by removing the mold by extracting infected sections, or an entire plant.
Leafy vegetables commonly encounter spinach mosaic virus as well. In this case, leaves become mottled, and may later turn yellow. The plant appears wilted and stunted. Choosing resistant varieties can eliminate this problem altogether.
Fusarium can cause asparagus to wilt or rot. The spears look spindly and shoots may become yellow. The roots may rot and become discolored. Eliminate the infected plants by thinning the crop. Another common problem with asparagus is rust, cause by Puccinia fungus. Red spots appear on the shoots of spears. This fungus may survive through the winter. Prevent rust by avoiding excessive watering.
Other conditions that affect tomatoes are leaf spots and blight. If the summer has been cool, these will usually appear by mid-August. There are also fungi in the soil that can affect tomatoes. The roots of walnut trees can carry a harmful toxin to tomato plants. Dark concentric rings will appear on leaves with this condition. Allowing the leaves to dry before sunset will help you prevent these problems.
Recognizing the signs and treating them early will optimize your chances of a healthy crop.