One of the worst benevolences ever perpetrated on a generation of children was free milk at school — especially in Queensland where I grew up. Every child had to drink their small bottle of milk every morning.
All morning we looked out of our classroom and watched the milk getting hotter and hotter under what had been the shade of a tree at 7am. Then at 11 o’clock we were herded out to drink it. While a sun-warmed peach is a thing of delight, the memory of a sun-warmed small bottle of (unhomogenised) milk still makes me retch.
To make matters worse, we had to drink the milk next to the pigs’ bins, where all the crusts and unwanted lunchtime apples were thrown. The bins were emptied on Fridays, but in the meantime they went bubble, bubble, bubble as they fermented. I imagine a whole generation of alcoholic pigs mourned the day that feeding scraps to pigs was banned.
Since those days I have never willingly drunk a glass of milk, except straight from someone’s cow, which doesn’t count. But there are a few extremely good things you can do with a glass of milk. The first one is to make a spray for downy and powdery mildew, and the second is as a preventative for black spot. I know it sounds odd, but milk spray works. I suspect the only reason the sprays aren’t better known is that no company — or gardening nursery — could ever make money selling milk to its customers. So give fungicides the flick and try milk.
The downy and powdery mildew recipe is simple: mix one cup of milk with five cups water, sprayed at the first symptoms then every three days. I spray our pumpkin and zucchini bushes twice a week as soon as Christmas is over. It really does keep them healthier for longer, though it isn’t as effective once you see the brown edges, curling leaves and “white down” of the mildew. Make sure you spray under the leaves as well as on top.
Black spot is those horrible splodges you get on rose leaves, though you’ll often find the spots are yellow or brown instead of black. In bad cases, the leaf shrivels then the whole shoot shrivels up and dies. Like downy mildew, black spot is worst when it’s hot and humid, or when you have a long period of hot dry days then a short burst of rain — which is a pretty good description of Australian summers in most regions.
The anti-black spot recipe is a bit more complicated than the downy mildew recipe: mix one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda into your glass of milk, and then mix with three cups of water. Spray every four days for two weeks, then once a week.
Actually, if you have black spot on your roses, there’s another great little organic recipe which the American Rose Society recommends, using the same principle of oil and bicarb: you mix three teaspoons of bicarb with 2.5 tablespoons PestOil, then mix into 4.5 litres of water. Again, spray every four days for two weeks, then once a week. The oil stops the spores from germinating, just as the butterfat from the milk does, and the bicarbonate of soda is alkaline and will help kill the spores.
If you don’t want to spray your roses at all, just look for the magic words “black-spot resistant” on the label when you buy a rose. A surprising number of roses are resistant to black spot — just as some varieties will get black and yellow leaves even if you hold an umbrella over their heads every time it rains.
I’ve been testing a few roses that are supposed to be black-spot-resistant over the past few years — and I mean testing. Some of my roses are surrounded by long grass, planted in semi-shade, the lot. Every one of them has lived up to its claim. And I promise you, no matter what sort of rose you love, there is one out there that will tickle your fancy and doesn’t get black spot.
Actually now that I have milk in my fridge for the zucchini and the roses, I’ve found that I’m finally drinking milk again — as iced coffee. Mix decaf coffee and low-fat milk and serve it very, very cold — a good glass of milk is a great way for you and the garden to enjoy the summer.
