Okay, we noticed that some of the leaves on the zucchini plant are acquiring a coating of what looks like white powder. After doing a bit of research last night on teh interwebz, I determined that we are suffering from powdery mildew, which is apparently something that thrives on wet, cool weather. And if we could characterize this season thus far, it would be wet and cool. Very wet indeed.

So now that we know what we’ve got, the next step was to figure out how to deal. The answer to this question was surprising. Milk. Diluted 1 part milk to 9 parts water (or 5 parts water, depending on which website you choose to believe), and sprayed directly on the leaves, preferably in the early evening so that it doesn’t evaporate off the plant too quickly. This sounds like some kind of plant voodoo to me, but of course I’m going to give it a shot. There are fungicides on the market, but since the goal is to keep things as organic as possible, we’ll start with the milk.

I’m also going to start keeping a garden journal so that we can keep track of our successes and failures this year.