In today's Q&A, I'm going to spin off of a question that was posted in the Beginners Garden Shortcut Facebook group by Beth.

She says, I'm looking for ideas or plans to use a small space that has been prone to powdery mildew in the past.

And she talks about how she has had pumpkins and squash in that area and they've always had issues

with powdery mildew and she was looking for other crops that that might not be prone to the disease

it sounds like the plants that she already understands are most susceptible to powdery mildew are the

cucorbit crops like squash and zucchini pumpkins melons melons to some degree, although personally I haven't

had as much issue with melons as I have had the other ones. And so she is looking for other

varieties. I think some of that probably does depend on your location. I've heard of people having

trouble with powdery mildew on peas. I personally haven't. But there are some crops that

aren't as susceptible, and that's what she was kind of looking for, some suggestions. I gave her a few

like tomatoes, peppers, okra, brassicas. In my experience, those haven't been an issue for me. Like I said,

other people might have different experiences. But I wanted to answer kind of the question underneath the question that maybe she didn't

have specifically, but you may have. And that is how do I just not have to deal with powdery mildew

or how do I adjust knowing that powdery mildew is a problem in my garden. In the last couple of years,

I've had more powdery mildew issues than in the past, so that's definitely something that I've

had to address. And I plan on doing a full podcast episode on different things that you can do

to prevent powdery mildew and to treat it based on some things that I tried last year. But for the purpose of this

episode, if you're listening to this in real time, you're planning your garden right now. Not many of you

probably have these cucurbit crops in your garden right now. But one thing that I have learned

that I like to do in my planning is just assume I'm going to have problems and

plant more strategically, plant more plantings. For me, this is what it looks like. And

particularly when we come to the cucumbers in the squash family, because not only are they

...