eliminate adult cucumber beetles’ favored spots for winter protection.

• Clean up debris from tomato vines to help control fungus diseases such as septoria leaf spot and early blight.

• Make sure to harvest all potato tubers, no matter how small, to deprive late blight of a place to spend the winter.

• After rhubarb dies to the ground, remove all the dead foliage. This single step helps control crown rot, leaf spot, anthracnose and verticillium wilt in rhubarb. Follow with a layer of compost, topped off with fresh mulch.

• Remove dried-up fruits, or mummies, from grape vines to help combat black rot. Do the same for cherry mummies, which can harbor black rot and leaf spot diseases. Autumn cleanup is also an important first line of defense against apple scab, the most serious disease of apples in our region.

• Also rake up dead leaves and twigs under fruit trees and grape vines.

• Write to Jan Riggenbach at 2319 S. 105th Ave., Omaha, NE 68124. Please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Find more online at www.midwestgardening.com.