Leave Plant Residue in the Garden if “diseased”?

Part 1 of a series of Posts

In my last post What are You Doing With Finished Plants? there were many great questions and comments that would add valuable information to the post.  Since many people don’t check comments, I’m doing a series of posts to answer questions, repeat reader’s input, and give my input on what they’ve contributed. These posts most likely will be seen by more readers than if they were just posted to comments.

This is Part 1 of that series.

Chris asked

“What if the plants are diseased with fungus, mildew, etc.?” In other words should you put the diseased residue back into your garden.?

This is a great question Chris, and probably one that many readers had after reading the post.

If you are one who can “really” identify some horrible disease in your garden then by all means remove it.  The only one I can think of that I  know about and would instantly remove would be late blight. Fortunately I’ve never had it.

It’s said to spread on the wind.  Thus it can spread to other gardens. At one time it was said only to survive the winter on living tissue. There was some discrepancy about that when I wrote the post on late blight in 2012.

Updating Older Posts With A link to This One Where Applicable

I’ll need to link to this post in several earlier posts where I recommend taking most “diseased” foliage out of the garden.

I Learned What I’m Telling You By Experience

Giving you the benefit of what I’ve experienced over the years may change your opinion about a lot of “diseases” that are common to almost every garden.

While it’s true that a garden that works with nature and is healthy is less prone to disease and can withstand the attack better — if weather conditions are just right — things like early blight and powdery mildew etc. will appear. And in my garden  – as you’ll learn — it didn’t have anything to do with leaving the residue in the garden in the prior year.

I think you’ll benefit from the details because it’s highly unlikely you’ll find the information elsewhere.

Here’s my disclaimer: 

I can’t tell anyone what to do.   But I can tell you exactly what my experiences have been and my thoughts on the subject after 43 years of gardening successfully and depending primarily on my garden for food.

In my beginning years of gardening in the early 80s, I almost drove myself crazy trying to determine what “disease’ my tomatoes had. 

Guessing Fusarium Wilt

All the diseases seemed similar to me.  But finally, I thought it must be fusarium wilt.  From all the information found, my garden was doomed.  

All the plants had to be destroyed according to what the “authorities” said. ALSO,   I could NEVER use that soil again  as the fungus stays in the soil.

A Most Important Decision

That helped me to make one of the most important decisions I’ve ever made in  43 years of gardening.

I decided to ignore it all.  

Though I didn’t know all the details of why my way of gardening worked — I knew it did.

Even back then it seemed common sense to me that nature doesn’t work that way.   Good healthy soil with great drainage, organic materials, (which means lots of soil life to help ward off disease), the ability to hold water for dry times,  good air circulation and a lot of common sense can heal most anything in your garden. 

Keep in mind that man-made problems  (poisons, chemicals being sprayed in the air, etc) will take longer to correct and cause more problems than most fungi.

And by the way – I read recently where the so-called “experts” are now advising to remove and replace fusarium-infected garden soil  but adjusting that slightly with the qualifier “whenever possible”.

Early Blight on Tomatoes

Looking back, I doubt my plants had fusarium wilt — but rather early blight which tomatoes in this area (as in lots of other areas) are commonly afflicted by.

Although, early blight is not what anyone wants, if conditions are right – it appears.  

When it shows up, by the time I remove all the leaves at the bottom of the plant where early blight starts, there are some bare looking stems with all kinds of tomatoes in spite of that. See picture below.

 

In years when Bill was sick — I didn’t have time to do all that “tending” and pulling off bottom leaves. Thus, plants looked awful with all their dead leaves but they produced heavily anyway.

In earlier years of gardening I took “early blight-afflicted” foliage out of the garden and recommended that in my posts. At some point – I decided not to.  As with most things now, I cut and dropped.

Here’s What Happened or Happens

There were years that tomato plants were beautiful with hardly a dead leaf until maybe the end of the season. Cutting and dropping plants with early blight in the prior year evidently did not effect the new year’s crops. 

And with that encouragement from nature under my belt I never removed foliage with early blight from the garden ever again.

Some heirloom tomatoes are prone to early blight and will get it no matter what if conditions are right..  And by the end of the season, the stems of tomatoes like those are bare of foliage but can be heavy with fruit. Other varieties (even those close by) can be flourishing.

Bottom line: If conditions were right for early blight, it appeared on my tomatoes.  But there were times it never appeared.

What About Potatoes?

Potatoes are also prone to early blight.

When we moved to this location about 24 years ago, my potatoes had early blight the first few years. For many years now, there has been no sign of that on any of my potatoes which are scattered in spots throughout the garden. In some cases they’re right next to tomatoes that have early blight.

What About Eggplant?

From what I’ve read eggplant can be effected by early blight.

In the years I’ve grown eggplant (maybe 5 off and on) they’ve never shown signs of early blight.

What About Mildew?

Powdery Mildew is about the only disease I’m positive that I’m identifying correctly.  It’s pretty hard to miss when all the leaves of your cucumbers are covered with white.

Currently, as with most things, I leave the residue of even the worse looking cucumber plant in the garden. This year I have cucumbers all over the garden. The plants have been beautiful in spite of no tending for almost 6 weeks while I couldn’t walk. And in spite of some “diseased” foliage returned to the soil last year.

This year for the first time since my beginning years of gardening, I have cantaloupe and watermelons. They too are prone to Powdery Mildew and Downey Mildew.  The foliage is and has been free from any mildew.

I notice today that one cucumber plant seems to be mottled with what may be the beginning of Downey Mildew — or maybe they’ve just outlived their time.

One Word of Caution

Squash is the perfect example of a plant most of us have to worry about being ruined by the squash bug or borer rather than a disease. (If any plant is invested with pests — kill those before you remove the dead or dying plant.)

That is one plant that I remove from my garden BUT ONLY after I leave it for a few weeks and check every day to kill the squash bugs that have amassed on the dead or dying plant.

Then I take the residue out and destroy it just in case there are eggs that I may have missed.

Final Thoughts

Over and over in almost everything we read about various common diseases sources will say to remove the residue from the garden.

Had I not had the experiences that I’ve had over 43 years, I would still be taking the residue of plants with these common ailments out of my garden.

There can always be exceptions to the rule, but mainly, now I consider it just something else I don’t have to do.

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