Quote:
Originally Posted by JRinPA
How do you use it for foliar use? Compost tea or vermicompost tea? I grow all my tomaotes in ground so maybe my experiences don't translate exactly, though I consider us as having the same latitude/rain/humidity. Our roof and barrel condition are about the same. Some green stuff grows, and I use mosquito bits
|
Thanks for hopping on my thread JR. It’s funny, I was just reading some of your posts on ripening. I thought that breathable earth may be a problem, but Craig (of Epic Tomatoes) does breathable bagged tomatoes. I was using rain barrel water for everything including Thuricide, copper, serenade, etc...
Good idea to stick with sanitized water with microbe based tea.
The more I go over this sesson’s Follies, I think it was totally a user error on my part.
1. Being a night owl and spraying/treating late night
2. Too many consecutive nights spraying and not giving my babies a night off.
3. Addicted to google.
What got me thinking about the rain water was when I saw a plant near my gutters that looked diseased. I foliar fed bone meal which seemed to help a purple phosphorus deficiency. I also foliar fed Kellog fish/kelp dilution. Looking at my notes things started getting worse after that. I was getting annoyed at bugs chewing holes which I later found to be flea beetles. I sprayed for pests in mid/late June, then applied diatomaceous earth. Maybe the septoria clung to DE and fell into soil, bc I did notice a spike in disease after that. Also in mid June I had to throw out some nasty diseased banana pepper I got from a local place. But again, I think I messed up with too much dampness. Now going back to my notes, i didn’t foliar feed much ACT, but mostly watered with it.
I think the lesson is to not wet your plants too late at night, and give them more dry evenings/days. And if you do spray at night, do it before sundown so they can dry a bit. Right? Or god forbid get up early and spray before the sun hits my babies