Before, or after, regular watering?

Better after sunset? or in the morning?

Does it matter how much per plant? I have a gallon sprayer.

I've never done this before, so it's all new to me. I'm also a newbie at growing vegetables . But I would hate to lose my squash plants.

I have read everything I could find, but did not see any answers to the above questions.

Thank you.

I’ve been too busy to post, but I did look at your pics, and after I did I noticed that both my squash and my cukes, which are side by side, have what appears to be the same thing you do. I think I may have had some of that every year, but I was never really paying that much attention, so I’m not sure. Mine look much more "affected" than yours do. Took a pic, but don’t have any idea when I might have time to download it or post it! Probably long after it would be helpful for you.

I’m not telling you to not do anything, but I’ve never done anything to try to "cure" it on my plants, and I don’t intend to do anything this year—even if I did have time. As long as the plants seem to be growing ok, I just kind of go with the flow! Chances are your squash leaves are gonna have powdery mildew before too long anyway—and that’s gonna make them look a lot worse than the little spots you have now. About the only thing I do do with my squash is to cut off the old lower leaves when they start to yellow or when they’re starting to get mildew. I’ve cut off most of the leaves at times in the past, and it doesn’t seem to affect their ability to produce squash at all—as near as I can tell. They seem to have the ability to regrow new leaves at an absolutely miraculous rate!

If you’re going to reapply the spray, I don’t have any idea how often it would be best, maybe somebody else will have some recommendations. Did the first spray seem to make any difference at all on the new growth? I’m just not sure all your effort is going to net you very much, and since they’ll be freezing in a couple months, I’m guessing they’ll be ok "on their own" for the rest of the summer. Now, if I had a problem with perennials, I’d be more interested in figuring out what was wrong and finding a way to fix it since they come back the next year.

It’s easy to over-worry when you you’re just starting to grow something—veggies or anything else. You’re so excited and watching so closely that you notice things that you’ll probably "get used to" in a few years, and won’t even pay any attention to them. Not saying you shouldn’t keep an eye on things to be sure they’re doing ok, and I don’t think I’ll ever get unexcited about watching things grow, especially in early spring when I get into "a watched pot (plant) never boils (grows)" mode and I’m out in the yard 20 times a day to see "if anything’s grown any more!" But when you first see what looks like it might be a problem, go inside, meditate for a while, and then go back to look and reevaluate what the problem is, and if maybe it’s not really as bad as it looked when you first saw it and freaked out. (Yeah, I still freak out about things too!) It might save you a lot of worry.

Just my thoughts on the subject! Now if you decide to not spray anymore, and all your squash plants decide to lay down and die on you, I’m gonna feel bad! :-)

I really do think they’ll be ok all by themselves.

Gotta go,
Skybird

Dan

Thanks, Dan!

I'll go do it right now! (7:40 am)