Organic Solutions for Powdery Mildew

Lately I've been trying out the
ready-to-apply Natria neem oil
solution. Not as cost-effective as
buying concentrate, but easy!

I've relied on neem oil nearly exclusively to treat garden problems over the past two years after hearing of it from a friend on, where else, Facebook.

It's an insecticide and a fungicide, and pretty darn effective when applied early on in a problem in the garden.

I went out to my garden the other day after not visiting for a day, and discovered the rain and cooler weather we've been having had contributed to a breakout of powdery mildew.

Not the best picture of powdery mildew, but here's one of my cucumber leaves. You'll see it looks like a bunch of powdery spots. When it spreads, it eventually looks like someone put powdered sugar on your plants:

The start of powdery mildew on my cucumber leaves.
Left untreated, it will spread. I'm trying to prevent that.

I trimmed as many of the leaves affected off the plant as possible, and then threw them out and washed my hands. I probably should have been more careful about where the pruned leaves fell, as I'm afraid I may have helped the airborne spores spread. Anyway, I then sprayed with neem oil the affected plans and nearby plants. But after doing some research, I've decided that while neem oil is effective against powdery mildew, it may not be the most effective treatment.


I love this post from Urban Garden Magazine on treating powdery mildew: How to Beat Powdery Mildew.

It speaks most highly of the effectiveness of milk on powdery mildew. Yup, milk. The blog reads:

Milk kills powdery mildew so well that both home and commercial rose growers all over the world have adopted it for their fungicidal sprays. Use one part milk to nine parts water. I’ve only used 1% milk, but other recipes call for either whole or skim milk and use up to 1 part in 5 milk.

The general rule of thumb is to not have the milk make up more than 30 percent of the solution or you could cause another fungal problem.

I'm going to try this out today and over the next week on both my garden and a bush in my front yard that looks like it also also suffering, and I'll report back! Apparently it can be used for prevention as well as just treating initial symptoms.

Wish me luck!