RE: How I started growing my own food at home (Part 1)
Damn, Eve! Great quick review of permaculture, didn't expect this from you!
The cucumber's unhealthy leaves must be plucked off immediately and burned to prevent further spreading of the disease. Don't compost or use them for mulch as the fungus can remain stagnant in soil for years.
You can help the plant with natural fungicide like neem oil, but I'm not in for those methods. For me all treatment must be integrated, in other words, serve more purposes than one.
Because of that, I think the best things to do are these two:
Protect the plant from temperature drops (the cold weakens it's immune system and stimulates the growth of the fungus) - temperatures must remain above 25C° to use this strategy.
Protect the plant from air moisture. This one is self-explanatory, the fungus loves water and it grows slower with less moisture.
Protect the plant from wind. Wind carries the spores and spreads the disease to other plants and leaf-to-leaf.
Stimulate the immune system of the plant. This can be done with quality compost, or my favorite and the most effective thing I've tried - aeriated compost tea! I'll make a post about it in a few months, you can Google it until then!
When you put togather the first 3 advices I gave you, a greenhouse just for the sensitive plants is a very good idea. Think about it...
With love,
@freegardens!
Thanks so much for the advice @freegardens! I will check out that aeriated compost tea, and cut off all the bad leaves. Number 2 is harder (how do you protect it from humidity?)
You're welcome, anything for you! ;)
It's just a general direction, you don't have to follow it all!
Obviously, you can't control air humidity without a greenhouse. You can't control the wind either and the temperature control would be silly (lighting a fire near the plant??)... All you can do is try to encourage the plant to build up it's immune system - which is enough to give you some cucumbers if you do it right, but the disease will eventually kill off the plant.