Growing healthy vegetables

• Look for disease resistant or tolerant varieties of disease problems you have seen in the past.
  
• Purchase seed from a reputable source.
• If saving your own seed, collect seed only from healthy plants.
• If you suspect seed may be contaminated, soak in 1:4 bleach solution for 1 minute and rinse in running water for 5 minutes just before planting.
• If starting seeds indoors, use new potting mix with new pots or pots cleaned with 10% bleach.
• Keep soil moist but not soggy.
• Provide good air movement around plants.
• If starting seeds in the garden, wait until the soil is warm enough to plant.

Remove all dirt and plant debris from

• Used pots.
• Garden tools.
• Plant supports, like trellises and cages.

Clean everything with a 10% bleach solution before using in the garden. (Mix 1 cup bleach to 9 cups water.) 

• Purchase healthy transplants from a local reputable grower.
• Inspect all transplants prior to purchase.
• Reject any plant with dark, discolored or soft sunken spots on leaves, stems or roots.

Plant in a location where no member of the same plant family has been grown for 2 to 4 years. For instance, don't plant tomatoes in the same place you grew eggplant 2 years ago.

Diseases are easier to deal with if identified early. Once disease is severe, there is little that can be done.

• Examine plants once a week throughout the gardening season.
• Use the online diagnostic tool What's wrong with my plant?
• Or send a plant sample to the UMN Plant Disease Clinic.

• Fungi and bacteria thrive in humid conditions.
• Use drip irrigation or water with a sprinkler early in the day so that the plant dries quickly in the sun.
• Space plants for good air movement so plants dry quickly after rain or dew.
• Stake vining plants like cucumber, bean, and tomato.
• Mulch to completely cover the soil with plastic or organic mulch like straw or woodchips
• Do not work in plants when leaves are wet. Fungi and bacteria easily spread under these conditions.

  

• Weeds crowd the crop and increase humidity on leaves and fruit.
• Weeds steal nutrients and water from the plant, resulting in plant stress.
• Many pathogens can survive on weeds and then move into the crop.

• Completely remove plants infected with a virus or aster yellows.
• Pinch off leaves infected with leaf spots and remove them from the garden. Never remove more than 1/3 of a plant's leaves.
• Remove rotten fruit from the garden to prevent spread to developing fruit. Do not harvest rotten and ripe fruit together or rot may spread in the refrigerator.
• At the end of the growing season completely remove diseased plants.
• Diseased plant material can be composted if the compost pile gets hot (148°F or more) and the plants completely break down.
• If the garden is very large, bury plant debris to begin the decay process and rotate to a different plant family the following year.