Gardeners Are Using This Common Throwaway To Keep Their Garden Produce From Rotting

Gardening can be one of the most rewarding things in the world. For the investment of your effort, you get to watch things grow and enjoy your own homegrown fruits and vegetables. At the same time, it can be incredibly frustrating to put in all that work just to have things rot before you get the chance to harvest them. While there are plenty of issues that can sneak in and destroy your produce, there's one thing that can contribute to rotting fruits and vegetables that you may not be watching out for — the dirt. This is because fruits and vegetables that come into contact with the soil after sprouting become extra susceptible to bacterial soft rot. To help avoid this gardening mistake, some gardeners are using old plastic lids as a barrier between the produce and the soil.

Bacterial soft rot is a disease that damages various parts of a plant, including the fruit. There are many species of bacteria that cause soft rot in produce, and it can happen before or after harvest. The microbes often require an entry site into the fruit, as well as certain environmental conditions (heat and moisture) to thrive and cause rot. A plastic lid under your fruit might be just the protection your garden needs this year.

There's nothing extra you need to do for this clever gardening hack other than save plastic lids from containers. When you notice your produce coming into contact with (or getting close to) the soil, simply grab a lid and place it underneath the fruit. This will help shield your produce from the soil's pathogens. If you're worried about plastic leaching into your soil, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) lids are a safe bet. HDPE lids are generally a thicker plastic than yogurt or cottage cheese lids. Milk jug lids, juice bottle lids, and anything else with the plastic recycling No. 2 symbol are made of HDPE. If you don't have an HDPE lid large enough, several can be melted together to form a larger disc.

Unfortunately, since soft rot isn't the result of a single organism, there's nothing you can spray on your plants to prevent it from happening. You can take some other precautions to help keep your zucchinis from rotting, though. Laying mulch around the base of your plants can serve as another barrier for your produce. To prevent your garden from becoming a hotbed for produce-rotting organisms, make sure it has good drainage. It's also a great idea to water your garden early in the day to ensure the plants aren't wet for a prolonged amount of time, and avoid hitting your fruit with tools while gardening.