I suspect that my dwarf beans (brown beauty) have mosaic virus. Is there anything I can do to treat it or should I just pull all the plants out? At first I thought it might have been magnesium deficiency, but looking at the photos from my Google search, mosaic virus is more likely.

I don’t think you can treat it. You may still get a crop although possibly not as much as if it didn’t have the virus.

I don’t think you can treat it. You may still get a crop although possibly not as much as if it didn’t have the virus.

>

Mosaic virus..

do you use tobacco?
Does anyone ?

I know it isn’t an imperative but it is true that tobacco users can spread it to their plants.

if you are sure it is mosaic then you should really pull them and burn them according to agricultural science. However you may prefer to feed them and water them as well as you can and still get what you can from them. The beans will not be all that nice to eat but they are food.

Viruses are everywhere. Try to work on buiding your soil so that plants have a greater chance of resistance. Seaweed fertilisers are great workers against virus attack.. soil tilth is also. Humus is the magic ingredient.

roughbarked said:

I don’t think you can treat it. You may still get a crop although possibly not as much as if it didn’t have the virus.

>

Mosaic virus..

do you use tobacco?
Does anyone ?

I know it isn’t an imperative but it is true that tobacco users can spread it to their plants.

if you are sure it is mosaic then you should really pull them and burn them according to agricultural science. However you may prefer to feed them and water them as well as you can and still get what you can from them. The beans will not be all that nice to eat but they are food.

Viruses are everywhere. Try to work on buiding your soil so that plants have a greater chance of resistance. Seaweed fertilisers are great workers against virus attack.. soil tilth is also. Humus is the magic ingredient.

Thanks roughbarked. No we don’t use tobacco. The only one who does is my son-in-law who lives in Sydney and he doesn’t get into our garden. When we started the vegie patch about 5 years ago the soil was fairly heavy clay, but with building raised beds, constant additions of compost and other organic matter, charlie carp, seasol and working on a six-year rotation, the soil is gradually improving.

I will admit that we are not always as diligent with weed removal as we could be because my husband is lucky to get one weekend in every 3 or 4 to work inthe garden and I am limited to only working in it when my back isn’t too painful.

It is true that during my life I have observed that gardens only do well when you are out in them.

If distracted elsewhere.. The garden always suffers.

roughbarked said:

It is true that during my life I have observed that gardens only do well when you are out in them.

If distracted elsewhere.. The garden always suffers.

Still we all do the best we can within our limitations don’t we??? At least we are having a go and trying to do the right thing by the planet and ourselves!

Having said that, our garden is looking pretty good overall this year. I have been able to more this season because I haven’t had much pain and hubby has been around a bit more over the past month or so.

One of our biggest problems is the wind. Even though we are renting we are trying to get a windbreak growing, but needless to say want (read “need”) to do it on the cheap because of the cost, so we are raising hakea salicifolia and acacia longifolia from seed. I have also collected some seeds from the indigineous she-oaks so will give them a try too.

note the long L shaped windbreak.. all hand planted from seed grown in my nursery.

note the C shape within the L

roughbarked said:

It is true that during my life I have observed that gardens only do well when you are out in them.

If distracted elsewhere.. The garden always suffers.

agreed
i like to put a chair in the garden to encourage myself and others to just sit and look.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p70/beaver_album/homegoogleearth.jpg

Just got this from google earth, but it’s an old image. We have more fruit trees now and also our solar water heater isn’t shown (it was installed in Sept.) Our house is the one on the top left.

As you can see we are really exposed on the western and southern sides so it will take a decent windbreak to fix it. But we’ll get there gradually.

Our vegie garden is the green patch just to the left of the water tank.

AnneS said:

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p70/beaver_album/homegoogleearth.jpg

Just got this from google earth, but it’s an old image. We have more fruit trees now and also our solar water heater isn’t shown (it was installed in Sept.) Our house is the one on the top left.

As you can see we are really exposed on the western and southern sides so it will take a decent windbreak to fix it. But we’ll get there gradually.

Our vegie garden is the green patch just to the left of the water tank.

You are slightly south and west of me. Yes all the google images are dated .. differently to the date they display since they are dated before they are even uploaded.