Home Vegetable Gardening: Solutions for Anthracnose

Anthracnose is a disease that produces small spots on the stems and leaves of plants that you grown in your home vegetable garden. If left untreated they will grow in size and eventually the plant will die.

This disease affects many varieties of vegetables such as, but not limited to, beans, cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce, peas, peppers and potatoes. If the plant has stems or leaves, it can be affected. You get the point. Here are three ways you can handle this common home vegetable garden disease.

Start with spraying your vegetable plants with compost tea. Compost tea is filled millions of tiny bacteria and beneficial microbial that ward away harmful diseases, of which one is anthracnose. You make compost tea by filling a burlap sack with compost, and plunging the sack of compost into a bucket filled with water. Let it steep for 24 to 48 hours and you will have excellent compost tea. There are more advanced methods of making even better compost tea, but this formula will get you started.

Second, if you don’t do so already, rotate your crops annually. There are many benefits to rotating your crops and the prevention of anthracnose is one of them. So if you plant tomatoes in row 1 this year, make sure you plant tomatoes no closer than row 3 next year. You get the idea.

Finally choose seeds of plants that you are going to grow that have engineered for disease resistance. Scientists are doing great things today by making our seeds more stable, and more resistant. The best part is they are not any more expensive then other seeds. Choosing seeds that are made to be disease resistant will go a long way to a healthier vegetable garden harvest.

It is inevitable. You are going to get hit with Anthracnose at some point if you do not take the necessary steps to prevent and control it. Follow these tips I have talked about here and you will be well on your way to knocking out this pesky disease.

About the Author
Mike is the owner of Mike the Gardener Enterprises, LLC where you can sign up for their Seeds of the Month Club and receive 4 packs of vegetable, fruit and herb seeds every month.