About Starting A Vegetable Garden

Growing your own vegetables is a rewarding experience. But it’s not just about the food – a well-planned garden also saves time and money.

Vegetables need sunlight, water, air and nutrient-rich soil to thrive. Start early in the season to allow for planting, mulching and fence-building.

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) – Home gardeners are being asked to keep an eye out for late blight on their plants in order to keep both home gardens and commercial gardens safe. Late blight is a disease that infects potato and tomato plants and is highly contagious. Late blight is able to infect fields at a time, according to the Extension Potato Pathologist from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Kutay Ozturk.

Ozturk “I think late blight isn’t being seen here for five years now but this weather is perfect for late blight so that is why we are getting concerned. My main concern since covid — including my parents’ family, as well — many people got into home gardening, and I don’t think many people are aware or at least kind of forgotten what late blight is or what it can do. Unfortunately, late blight historically most of them starts in home gardens and jumps from there to the commercial growers. Late blight can be a pretty devastating disease.”

Ozturk says if you see any late blight symptoms –which first appear as a wet or oily brown spot on top of the plant’s leaf with a white fuzz on the bottom of the leaf — you should let the Cooperative Extension or the Maine Potato Board know. In the meantime, you should bag the plant infected with blight before throwing it away or giving it to one of the two organizations. We will have more about how you can keep your gardens safe in a future edition.

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Source: wagmtv.com