Mildewy squash plants thanks to Vancouver's current 'summer'

My squash plants were/are going gang busters. I'm training them up a sturdy trellis, but with the recent bout of constant showery weather, mildew is really setting in. It was starting up in an earlier wet spell, but I picked off the worst leaves and then we had a stretch of dry weather and things settled down, but the last 10 days have really got it going again. I gather you can spray with a mix of water and milk (I'll have to look up the proportion) but is it safe to remove some large leaves from the plants at the base which are worst affected? And am I likely to lose the plants in this weather pattern now that mildew is so well established? It would be a tremendous shame as they are producing flowers and budding squashes, though the ones at the base of the plant are rotting off. My veggie garden lies along an east/west line of movement of sun and gets sunlight (when we have any) for most of the day.

 

You can take off the lower effected leaves. That will allow air movement. The plant has already given up on them to sustain life.

I haven't heard about your milk spray.

 

A fixed copper spray will help.

 

I did a fairly severe thinning yesterday as so many of the large leaves were infected and then sprayed with diluted milk. I found the 'milk cure' online at various sites and googled just now to see if I could supply one. Found this that at least does refer to a study. http://www.thefrugallife.com/mildew.html I used a 50/50 milk/water mixture based on whatever site I'd checked yesterday, but his one suggests 10% which is more economical. I'll see how it goes. The rainy weather doesn't seem to be forecast to clear up until next week, so I'll see how it goes with my plants. I'm sure the thinning did some good, but there was a lot of mildew on the lower stems on a couple of plants. If I can keep them going until they stretch up the frame, maybe I'll get some squashes out of them. I'd have a bumper crop going right now if it wasn't for the damp. Lots of flowers and squash buds.

 

In general, it appears that milk applied before fungal inoculation is more effective
than milk applied after infection is present

http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda chalker-scott/Horticultural Myths_files/Myths/Milk and mildew.pdf