North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Mathew Waehner <waehner@gmail.com>]

I would burn the powdery mildew material or compost it in a hot pile.  Or if you have a natural area on your property, just chuck it back there.

On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us> wrote:

This isn't strictly about fruit, but I think the principle is the
same, as powdery mildew attacks some fruit plants as well as my peonies.

For the last several years I've gotten some powdery mildew on my
peonies.  It's time to cut them down for the winter, and they all have
a little mildew, and the ones I didn't spray (with milk!!) have a lot
of mildew.  In the past I've carefully separated the mildewed waste
and put it in my municipal trash instead of throwing it into the mulch
pile.  But now that the fungus seems endemic, I wonder if it's worth
the trouble.  What say you?  Okay to just toss it in the mulch pile?

Note that my "mulch pile" isn't a carefully tended compost heap that
necessarily gets hot enough to "cook" things.  It's just the back
corner of the property where I toss fall leaves and random yard waste,
and where my husband dumps moldy fruit and the kitchen compost.
Starting this year I have mined it a little for topsoil (there's very
nice organic stuff under the top foot of mostly leaves.)  And I expect
to mine it for topsoil in the future, so I don't want to build up a
heavy disease load.  But I don't know how much it matters.

Thanks,
Ginda
eastern MA, zone 6
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