We believe that the urban garden is one of the solutions in the face of rising cost of living. By applying permaculture principles in the design and lifestyle, we seek to maximize onsite resources to meet most of our needs with minimal impact on the land.

Tuesday, 18 September 2007

Organic Fungal (RUST) Control

There are rust on a patch of vegetation. From my research for an organic combat, Neem Oil and Garlic sprays are two natural fungal control for Rust.

Garlic Spray:
1 garlic bulb
1 quart water
crush the garlic bulb, place in a pan of water. bring to boil then turn off heat.let mixture cool. Strain out garlic.Pour liquid into spray bottle and spray affected areas of plants. repeat as`necessary.

Garlic is known to fight many types of disease causing fungi, including mildew,gray mold, rust. Garlic has not only been shown to fight fungi, but it also has repellent qualities for other diseases and insects. Plant Garlic bulbs next to your roses, and you should not have any problems with aphids.

Milk is another combat but it works a little differently from Neem Oil and Garlic. A comment from a forum:

There are many layers of bacteria and fungi living on the outside of your plants. The simple proof of that is the rust fungus living on the outside of your plants. The problem is that the beneficial microbes, which usually live there and protect your plants from disease, have lost their ability to do that. They need to be revitalized. Your compost tea will help with that, but also I would spray separately with milk dissolved in water at 3 ounces per gallon of water. Spray as often as you want to. Up here we shoot for spraying every 2 weeks. Your area may appreciate it every week. The milk will provide real food for the microbes living on the plant surfaces and should restore the good health to the beneficials. Once they are healthy, they should eliminate the rust fungus for you.

As an experiment, I'll section out the problematic veg patch into 3 sections and try each of the remedies on 3 different areas. Looking forward to finding out the outcomes.