Question
For the past three years, I have planted a fairly large vegetable garden. Every year it looks like I'm going to have the best garden ever, then...the week after the 4th of July, everything starts dying on one end. I have had the soil tested. It needed nitrogen...Did everything that was suggested. Two days ago, I lost my first cucumber plant. Thinking, "here we go". Woke up this morning and the corn that looked great yesterday evening(which is up to my chest, I'm 5'2") is yellowing from the bottom up..Lost another cucumber plant..all wilting....losing 2 potato plants, losing red beets...HELP!!  This garden looked fantastic and healthy last night! What could be the problem? I have researched before and can never seem to find a solution. This SHOULD not be happening year after year. Hopefully,you can tell me a product that I need to use to save them before they all die..Please respond.

Answer
If it were one type of vegetable, I would suspect a specific insect infecting the plants. But given the fact that all of the vegetables are affected, it definitely has to be a soilborne disease.

Keep in mind that some soil test kits only evaluate the levels of nutrients in the soil. To have the soil tested for disease, it normally takes an agricultural firm or top level nursery to diagnose the soil.

Based on your description, however, I have little doubt that the soil is infected. One common problem is club root, but I really cannot diagnose the actual disease without a test evaluation.

One way to eradicate a soil disease is to solarize the soil. This is accomplished by spraying the entire area with a fungicide, and then covering the soil with 3 mil black plastic for three months. You can do that now and leave the plastic on until next spring, or you can cover it in early March and not plant until June. Either way, it has to be done or else this condition will reoccur every summer.

In the meantime, if you think the remaining plants are salvageable, you can spray them now with a copper-based fungicide. I use a product called Soap Shield, which is sold by an online company named Gardens Alive. If you visit your local nursery, they should have a similar product. But a word of caution, if this is a soilborne disease, this measure will prove futile since many diseases cannot be reversed once they infect the plants. At the point, the only way to correct the condition is to solarize the soil.

I hope this information proves beneficial. Good luck, and please write again if I can ever provide assistance.

Regards,

Mike