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On Tuesday, August 6th at 7pm, the Bartow County Extension office will be hosting a free seminar on “Troubleshooting Vegetable Garden Problems.”\u00a0 This is a great opportunity for backyard gardeners and local farmers to bring plant samples for diagnosis and discuss common vegetable problems this season.\u00a0 We will also have several door prizes to give away during the seminar!\u00a0 Please call the extension office at 770-387-5142 to let us know you\u2019re coming.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s much debate among County Extension agents about the most common garden problems that we encounter on the job. The majority would agree that the number one issue is frequent water application to gardens, especially in our Georgia red clay soils.\u00a0 Clay soils have the highest water holding capacity of any soil in the world. \u00a0As a result, it\u2019s very easy to \u201coverwater\u201d plants that are growing in clay soil, which takes longer to dry out than other soil types.<\/p>\n
I cringe every time a client tells me they water their garden every day.\u00a0 Even watering lightly every day is not a good thing, since only the surface of the soil gets wet and the roots remain shallow or stunted.\u00a0 Shallow water will evaporate from the soil before the plants can absorb it.\u00a0 What you want to do is encourage deeper roots by forcing them to seek out the water in the subsoil.<\/p>\n
The other extreme of watering excessively every day invites root rot and disease.\u00a0 Roots actually need oxygen to grow and stay healthy.\u00a0 If the soil remains saturated and never has a chance to dry out for a few days, then the roots will die from a lack of oxygen.\u00a0 Ironically, when roots start to die, the plant will actually start to wilt because the dying roots are unable to absorb water.\u00a0 This creates a vicious cycle were people assume they need to water their \u201cwilted\u201d garden more.<\/p>\n
The proper way to water a garden with clay soil is more deeply and less frequently.\u00a0 The rule of thumb is to apply about one-inch of water per week.\u00a0 If we get an inch of rain, you shouldn\u2019t water your garden for at least a week.\u00a0 If we get a half-inch of rain and no rain is in the forecast, then you should water the garden the other half-inch a few days after the last rain event.\u00a0 The best way to \u201cgauge\u201d how much water you\u2019re applying with an overhead sprinkler is with a rain gauge.\u00a0 Turn on the sprinkler and time how long it takes to apply a quarter or half-inch of water.\u00a0 Adjust the amount you need to apply according to the weather.<\/p>\n
If you use an overhead sprinkler for irrigation, be sure to only water early in the morning before 10am so that the leaves will dry more quickly as the sun rises.\u00a0 Watering at night or late in the evening will increase the chances of many disease problems.\u00a0 You might also want to buy an automatic timer to shut off the water.\u00a0 These are available at most garden centers and can be attached to the hose bib.\u00a0 I like to set the timer on my garden before going to work in the morning and not have to worry about turning it off.\u00a0 A simple mechanical timer usually costs between $10 and $20, a reasonable amount given the convenience they provide.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re hand-watering your vegetables with a hose, time how long it takes to fill up a 5-gallon bucket of water.\u00a0 Six gallons of water per 10 square feet soaks the soil about the same as 1\u201d inch of rain.\u00a0 This will vary depending on your water pressure, hose size, and nozzle that you have on your hose.\u00a0 If it takes 30 seconds to fill a 5-gallon bucket, then you can count to 30 while you water each tomato plant in your garden.\u00a0 This is all the water that plant will need for about a week.<\/p>\n
Invest in an extended watering wand that allows you to place the water directly on the roots rather than spraying the leaves. \u00a0Keeping the leaves dry will significantly reduce the chances of many leaf diseases.\u00a0 An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (or pesticides).\u00a0 Soaker hoses and drip irrigation systems can also be used to efficiently place the water on the plants\u2019 roots rather than the leaves.<\/p>\n
For more information on specific insects, diseases, and other vegetable disorders, join us for our upcoming seminar this week.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be able to discuss more strategies to manage and avoid common vegetable problems through techniques such as crop rotation, weed control, resistant varieties, proper spacing, soil testing, sanitation, chemical control, soil temperature and planting dates. \u00a0Be sure to bag a bug, weed, or disease sample and bring it to the seminar!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Tuesday, August 6th at 7pm, the Bartow County Extension office will be hosting a free seminar on “Troubleshooting Vegetable Garden Problems.”\u00a0 This is a great opportunity for backyard gardeners and local farmers to bring plant samples for diagnosis and discuss common vegetable problems this season.\u00a0 We will also have several door prizes to give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15,32,25,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diseases","category-insects","category-irrigation","category-soil","category-vegetable-gardens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}