Evil Lurking

My arch nemesis has arrived...the squash vine borer.  Dun dun DUN!

A couple of weeks ago, I planted a late planting of summer squash with the hopes that I could do some harvesting before the cold weather comes.  But more so, I was hoping that by doing such a late planting, that I wouldn't have to combat the squash vine borer that has wiped out my squash plants the last three spring seasons.

Apparently, no such luck.  I found THIS in my garden this week:  a female squash vine borer moth laying her eggs on my plants.  Oh, the nerve!  It was like she was just waiting for me to plant more squash so she could crush my hopes and dreams (am I being a little too dramatic?...well, I don't think so, and you wouldn't either if you've had to deal with this horrible pest).

Now the question...do I go around and try to pick off every single itty bitty egg on my ~12 squash plants?  Do I let the eggs hatch and the larvae burrow into my vines, hoping that I can maybe cut them out later, like I did earlier this year, and hope in the meantime that I can harvest a few squash?

Well, I just couldn't stand the thought of losing all my squash again to this pest, so, I did end up going around all 12 plants, and checked around every leaf and stem, picking the little rusty red eggs off one by one.

Apparently, the moth preferred laying most of the eggs around the base of the stem, just below the soil level - nice and hidden.  So, I had to pull the soil back and scrape off the eggs.  During the whole process, I probably missed a couple eggs here and there, but that gives me a much lower chance of having to deal with the larvae later.  At least, I hope so.

One thing is for sure.  Next year, IF I try squash one last time, I'll give it the royal treatment by planting in a bed that I haven't planted squash in the last few years (otherwise the squash vine pupae that burrow into the ground may hatch and crush my dreams again), and cover with row covers.  If that doesn't work, then I should really just give up, which breaks my heart because I LOVE squash, and squash plants are usually such great producers!

Squash Planting - Round 2

Due to the terrible squash vine borer that wiped out all of my lovely squash plants, I've decided to give it another go and plant a second round of squash plants.  I'm hoping it is late enough in the season now that the borer won't be an issue this time around.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I cleaned up the bed of all the dead squash vines and weeds and planted the following seeds:

• 2 Early Acorn Hybrid
• 1 Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash
• 2 Black Beauty Zucchinis
• 1 Spaghetti Squash
• 1 Waltham Butternut
• 1 Jack O'Lantern Pumpkin
• 1 Large Bottle Gourd
• 1 mystery squash (there was a healthy, but small squash plant already growing in the bed that I decided to leave.  I'm not sure what it is, but based on my first planting locations, I would guess a pumpkin or bottle gourd)

Here's to hoping that second squash planting is much more successful (aka no squash vine borers).

On the bright side, I have a healthy-looking mystery squash growing in the yard.  I'm guessing it is a pumpkin, considering I left a pumpkin in that general spot last fall.  At first, I thought the mystery squash escaped the deathly squash vine borers, but on second look, the largest vine had been compromised and there was the obvious squash vine borer "saw dust" on the base of the plant.  I'm hoping the vine has rooted in some other places and will be able to survive, but I won't hold my breath.

RED ALERT - Squash Vine Borer Invasion

The dreaded day has come.  My worst enemy (other than Bermuda Grass) has arrived - the abominable squash vine borer.  I first noticed some of my squash leaves starting to turn yellow - the first sign of trouble.  I then inspected the vines, and sure enough, there was the dreaded yellow "saw dust" - the sure sign that the squash vine borer larvae had burrowed into my beloved squash plants and was eating and killing it from the inside out.

I couldn't just let my squash plants die... they had been producing so well!  I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel.  Drastic times call for drastic measures - I had to perform surgery on my plants if I wanted them to have any chance of survival.

I grabbed a sharp knife and cut into the base of the vine, where the "saw dust" had accumulated - the most likely place where the larvae was hanging out.  I tried to keep the cut as small as possible, to limit the trauma to the plant, but large enough to see and dig out the larvae.

Sure enough, I saw the little bugger in there.  My first cut wasn't wide enough to dig him out, so I had to cut away a little more of the vine, but I finally got him out... SUCKER.

I then covered the base of the vine up with some dirt, hoping it will heal from the horrible incident.  I'm really hoping the plants bounce back.  I was able to extract larvae from my zucchini and acorn squash plants.  I'm pretty sure the borer got to some of the other squash as well, but I couldn't find the larvae, so it might have been too late.  I'll have to wait and see if my efforts did the trick.  I might end up ripping out some of the dying vines and try to get another planting in.  One thing is for sure, I'm going to use row covers next year to keep those nasty squash vine borer wasps off my plants.

Today's Harvest: First Zucchini and Peppers

The first zucchini (Black Beauty) and pepper (Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno) this year have been harvested from the garden!  I also picked another Pic-N-Pic yellow summer squash.  The first Pic-N-Pic squash I harvested a couple weeks ago had a very tough skin that I couldn't eat.  It looks like this second one will be more edible, but I'll just have to wait and see after I cook it up!

Harvest Totals (since April)

• 5 lbs Cherry Bell Radishes
• 3 lbs Giant Fordhook Swiss Chard
• 1 lb 0.1 oz Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash (2 squash)
• 8.8 oz Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas
• 15 oz Black Beauty Zucchini (1 squash)
• 1.0 oz Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno

Today's Harvest: First Peas and Squash

Today in the garden I harvested the first peas and squash of the season - Guisante Mammoth Melting Sugar peas and Calabacin Pic-N-Pic Hybrid to be exact.

The great thing about having a vegetable garden is that as soon as you pick the veggies, they can go directly into a delicious home-cooked meal.  Tonight I made a delicious chicken stir fry with today's veggies (which I slightly altered to use the vegetables I had on hand, and egg noodles instead of rice).  The peas were flavorful and tender.  Being summer squash, I left the rind on the squash when I cooked it, thinking it would be soft.  It was not.  I'm hoping the rest of the crop will be softer, otherwise it will be a difficult squash variety to cook with and I probably won't plant it again if it takes a lot of prep work in the kitchen.

Harvest Totals (since April)

• 5 lbs Cherry Bell Radishes
• 3 lbs Giant Fordhook Swiss Chard
• 5.7 oz Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash
• 2.3 oz Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas

Squash

I planted several types of squash this year.  I hear that it is probably the easiest vegetable plant to grow, not to mention does quite well in the hot Texas weather, so it I thought it would be a good option for my first real garden.


In one of my raised garden beds, on May 20 I planted seeds directly into the ground, one mound each of:

• Butternut squash (Waltham)
• Acorn squash (Early Hybrid)
• Zucchini (Black Beauty)
• Gourds (Small Fancy Mix)
• Pumpkin (Jack-o-Lantern)

By June 10th, this is what my squash looked like:

By July 1st, the squash had really taken off:

However, bad news, I think the nasty squash vine borers got to my plants.  None of my plants have died yet, but I will definitely be keeping a close eye on them.  Unfortunately, I hear there is nothing I can do at this point in time besides plant another crop of plants and keep a close eye on them to get rid of any larvae that shows up.

But, for now, I have squash plants that are flowering.  It does seem like I have a lot more male flowers than female flowers, so I was worried I may not end up with any squash.  Much to my relief, I found this beautiful female acorn squash flower in the garden this morning.  Now I just hope that when the flower opens, I will have a nice male flower to pollinate it with.