I have a similar problem with my zucchini and cucumbers. My zucchini have gotten white spots on the leaves and some of them had died. I kept getting the fruit and as a new gardener, I didn't worry about it. After a week or two I noticed that most of the branches were dying and when I lifted some, the stem broke just above the ground. It was rotted through. All three of my plants have died and I removed them all from the garden. We have had a wet summer and I may have over watered them, though my soil drains pretty well. Next, my neighbor's cucumbers (which are separated from my garden by a link fence) have all withered and died. I am now noticing spots on my cucumber leaves, some have even become holes, and the vines are beginning to wither. Is there anything I can do to prevent further damage or what can I do to prevent this problem next year? Should I spray milk on them?

Hi raul, I am glad to hear that it worked for you at such high temps. but that in not the norm!!!. I prefer to teach novice fishkeepers to keep fish that are compatible for tank size, temp and water conditions, and compatibility to each other. I would never recommend that a novice fishkeeper start by pushing the limits. BTW I have 20+ years experience with fishkeeping and fishbreeding and maintaining my own large fishroom.....I won't say the exact number of years because that makes me damn old. LOL!!! I specialized in different fishes at different times...catfishes.....mainly cory's for quite a few years. I also have the education in both fish and aquarium plants to back up my experiences and what I say. My list goes on, but I don't see where that really matters. Skygee, Yes fish can be pretty adabtable....however if the proper conditions can be set up for their environment why not provide it. Mollys are proun to fungus, so they are best suited for tank water with salt in it. They don't have to be kept in water with salt in it.....however they do much better. Isn't that what most fishkeepers want...to have the healthiest fish possible? Oceanbubbles, .....I don't want to confuse you by not agreeing with raul.....nothing is worse than conflicting information. So I am going to leave......if you want my help however just let me know, since I already started to help you. You are definately on the right track now with your discus!!! Keep up the good work! and keep learning. Happy fishkeeping to you and your fish!!! :)

This year my tomatoes have suffered from wilt. I don't know which wilt for sure -- it's the one with dark brown patches on the lower leaves surrounded by yellow, which eventually causes the leaves to die. **** Peter, you/ve asked about wilt then said that the leaves have dark brown spots. What you're describing is a foliage infection and wilting is not a symptom of those kinds of infections. Hybrids have no disease resistance/tolerance to foliage infections and nor do most OP varieties. Matt's Wild Cherry is what's called a cerasiforme and so I can see it might not come down with those kinds of infections. If plants with foliage infections have shed the bacteria and/or fungi to the soil in a preceding year then splashback infection can occur and mulching can help but not prevent reinfection. Sterilizing the stakes isn't going to help b/c if you've had infected plants in there before the soil already has those pathogens there. And new infections can occur by windborne or rainborne means and you can't do anything about that other than to do what most others do and that's to protect the plants from when you first set them out. Many folks use Ortho Garden Disease Control which is Daconil. Daconil is synthetic but can be applied up to the day of harvest and has a lower toxicity than does Rotenone, which is approved organic by every organic certifying agency that I know of. Daconil is an anti-fungal so you need to know that the foliage infection you have is fungal in nature. If you go to the Tomato Pest and Disease Forum ,link at the top of this first page, look for Problem Solver #2 and then for links to disease sites. The two most common fungal foliage pathogens are Early Blight ( A. solani) and Septoria Leaf Spot. If the foliage infection is bacterial in nature, usually either Bacterial Speck or Bacterial Spot, then you need to consider using a copper containing product such as Kocide or similar. You can also go to Google, select IMAGES and enter the disease to find pictures. Copper containing products have some activity against fungal pathogens but they aren't as effective as Daconil. But you really need to know if you're dealing with a bacterial or fungal foliage pathogen and sometimes both can be present at the same time. Windclimber has suggested using compost tea but from all the feedback I've seen over the last decade or so they aren't known to be very effective. The basis for their use is to compete with the foliage pathogens on the leaf surface, presumably blocking the specific attachment sites where the pathogens bind by competition. If applied to the soil they have no activity in blocking those leaf sites. What Daconil does is to bind to those specific sites and is effective in preventing the fungal folaige pathogens from attaching. Turning over the soil, not just rototilling it, where you grow your tomatoes also helps by burying the pathogens that are on the surface of the soil after bing shed. Hope that helps. Carolyn

Blossom end rot has many causes. But the good news is that it ususally goes away as the plants mature and can better handle the many stresses that can induce it. It used to be thought that BER was due to a lack of calcium but research has shown that plants with BER fruits have plenty of calcium. Here's a post I wrote about BER and perhaps it will help explain some of the issues: Blossom End Rot (BER) is one of the most common tomato problems seen in the early part of the season. It is a physiological condition, not a disease caused by a fungus or a bacterium or a virus. Therefore it cannot be treated. And as I'll explain below, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to prevent. BER has nothing to do with the blossoms, it refers to the fact that at the end of the tomato opposite the place where the tomato is attached to the stem, called the stem end, is the bottom of the tomato, which is called the blossom end. You often can see remnants of the blossom attached to that end as the tomato forms. At the blossom end one sees a flattened area that looks leathery and initially brown and then black, as the fruit rots. BER is said to occur when there is uneven watering, drought, heavy rainfall, excessive nitrogen fertilization, rapid plant growth or root pruning during cultivation, high winds and rapid temperature changes. So lots of conditions have been associated with BER. But the rapid plant growth and nitrogen fertilization are both common to conditions seen early in the season, and indeed, that is when most BER occurs. Then it usually just goes away. BER occurs because under the conditions just stated, Ca++ moves from the fruit into the vasculature (stems) of the plant. Or, some feel that Ca++ never reaches the fruits because under stress demand for Ca++ exceeds supply.This lowered amount of Ca++ is what causes BER. Excessive rates of transpiration (kind of like sweating in humans) also is involved in Ca++ displacement. Thus, the plant as a whole is NOT Ca++ deficient, the Ca++ has just been displaced. Many books and magazine articles tell you that by adding Ca++ in the form of lime or eggshells, for instance, that you can prevent BER. That does NOT appear to be true. It was several years ago that I found out that University field trial experiments have so far failed to show that BER can be prevented by addition of Ca++. I recently e-mailed my friend at Cornell who told me all this two years ago, to again confirm that it was still true, and will update you, if necessary. Peppers and many cole crops are also susceptible to BER and there's quite a bit of literature on BER and Ca++ for those crops also. The results are the same; addition of Ca++ does not prevent BER. Some data strongly suggests that foliar spraying with Ca++ is of no use because not enough gets to the fruits to do any good. And it's known that the sprays for fruits that are sold are usless. No molecules can get across the fruit epidermis except when the fruits are still small and green. If they did, just what do you think would happen to the fruits when it rained.LOL Not all varieties of tomatoes get BER. Some never do, others are horrible. That's not surprising since certainly there are slight physiological differences between varieties. After all, almost all garden tomatoes, with the exception of the currant tomatoes are in the same genus and species, Solanum lycopersicum. And we humans are all in the same species, Homo sapiens, var. sapiens...and look how different some of our physiologies are. Whoa! So, BER is a physiological condition, cannot be cured, and current literature data suggests it cannot be prevented. It occurs on some, but not all varieties of tomatoes, is usually seen early in the season and then stops, for most folks. It would be nice to say that you could even out your watering, prevent droughts and heavy rainfalls, ensure even and not rapid growth of plants and not disturb the roots by shallow cultivating. But on a practical basis, I think we all know that's almost impossible. So, BER has never bothered me, I just ignore it, and it goes away with time. Adding Ca++ to soils that are Ca++ deficient makes sense, but few soils are. And if soils are acidic, Ca++ is not taken up well but addition of Epsom Salts to the soil can aid in Ca++ uptake in such acidic soils. Many folks add Ca++ and then see that BER disappears. What they fail to realize is that BER is going to go away anyway, as the season progresses. And that's because as the plants get larger they are better able to handle the many stresses that can induce it. So one cannot correlate addition of Ca++ to disappearance of BER. Universities have done so many stidies on this already because BER is a billion dollar problem in the commercial veggie industry. Of all the stresses that can induce BER the two that are most under control of the home gardener are fertilization and water delivery. That is, too much fertilizer causes plants to grow too rapidly and is perhaps one of the major causes of BER developing. Too rich soils do the same thing. Plant growth simply outstrips the ability of Ca++ to get to the fruits. Mulching to help ensure even delivery of water also can be done and is also one of the two major causes, IMHO, of BER. BER appears usually on half ripe fruits but also can appear on grass green ones.Lack of Ca++ only occurs at the blossom end of the fruit and it causes tissue destruction which leads to that papery greyish/blackish lesion appearing.Now sometimes that lesion opens up and fungi and bacteria enter and that causes the rotting and also the appearance of fungal growth on and in the lesion. Just pick off any BER fruits that appear and soon the next fruits to ripen will BERless. Many books, magazine articles and websites still say to add Ca++ as lime, eggshells, etc, and seem not to be aware of all the research that has been done in the last 20 years. But many books, magazine articles, are now sharing this newer information about addition of Ca++ not being able to either prevent or cure BER except in rare situations of low Ca++ soils or acidic soils. I suppose it will take another generation for the right information to be present everywhere. And from my own experience i can tell you that there will be folks who will get madder than can be when they read this kind of info becasue they simply believe otherwise. So be it. LOL Addition of modest amounts of Ca++ aren' t harmful, but I feel strongly that folks should know what's going on with past and current rsearch re BER and Ca++. Hope the above helps. Carolyn