Know Your Zone!

As a novice gardener, I never paid attention to "zones" or climate zones, when other gardeners posted things in forums and blogs. Today I decided to look my climate zone up, out of curiosity. I also figure I should know this incase I want to try growing some vegetables or flowers that are not going to do well in my climate. I need to get over my "slacker" attitude when it comes to gardening and learn some important facts. Haha.

I went on over to the NGA website. - National Gardening Association.  Click here to find your zone.

I've discovered that where I live - Oahu, Hawaii - That my climate zone is 10.

Now I guess I will look up plants and produce that grow well in zone 10.

Powdery Mildew

Today was the first day, in 3 days that I could actually do something in my garden. But it wasn't all that fun.

I had to cut and get rid of a lot of my newly grown zinnia flowers. The leaves were covered in mildew patches due to the rain and humidity. I've read that you could use a homemade spray to prevent mildew from spreading, but if the leaves or plant already has spots, you need to cut them off and get rid of it, or the mildew will just keep spreading.

So my zinnias went from huge to sparse. I was not happy. Once I got rid of the mildew stricken parts I sprayed the remaining ones down with my homemade spray of baking soda, water, dish washing soap, and vegetable oil. Let's hope this works. I'll re-apply in a couple days.

Zinnia's went from this...

To this. :(