Vertical squash to TRY to stop squash vine borers
larry_c
14 years ago
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farmerdilla
14 years agoanney
14 years agoRelated Discussions
Squash vine borer?
Comments (9)Shanonoh, vine borers can be many places in the plant, even up one of the stalks. To be totally sure, you may want to split open all of it. As you may know, you should also see the sand-like residue they leave behind. I hate to say it, but when vine borers got my squash this year, the plants died off slowly one at a time, as the borer grew larger and moved itself up the plant. I really hope that is not happening with yours. I swear I have PTSD from cutting open the plants and seeing those little wriggling worms inside!...See MoreSquash Bug or Squash Vine Borer
Comments (2)Is it worth it to spray the Sevin now... of should I wait til they hatch? As much as I hope that I did, I'm assuming I didn't find all of the clusters....See MorePumpkin Emergency! (Squash Vine Borers)
Comments (3)I have gone through all my plants once now, pulling them out- to date I've found around 12-13, with another one or two on the surface I pulled up before they could drill in. I'm still worried, though... the vine borers have a habit of drilling into leaves, which weakens or sometimes completely kills the leaves. My biggest vine has lost almost half of its leaves so far. Also, even though the eggs are still hatching, I can't use anything to spray them because I grow Romaine lettuce for my tortoise right by the pumpkins, and I would never risk something getting into his food. I heard someone say that wiping down the vine every day with a wet wash rag would stop at least some of them from getting in. Does this work? Thank you both for posting!!! By the way, does anyone know when the eggs should stop hatching in Iowa? (P.S.- Sorry that the image is sideways!)...See MoreSquash Resistant to Squash Bug and Squash Vine Borer
Comments (16)I have grown Tatume here a couple of times. While it outcompetes squash bugs, the squash vine borers still can kill it in a year when they are really bad. I don't grow it any more because we liked the flavor/texture of Seminole harvested young (baseball to softball-sized) better than Tatume. It is a huge space hog too, and because I already grow 6-10 kinds of C. moschatas most years, the last thing I need is a space hog that isn't as tasty as they are. Bon, I couldn't help noticing how many of my favorite Texas horticulturalists (Sam Cotner, Malcom Beck, Howard Garrett) were in Howard Garrett's story about Malcom's pumpkin. (Mr. Garrett and Mr. Beck write extensively on organic gardening and all their books are excellent, and Mr. Cotner wrote THE book on growing Vegetables in Texas. I've worn out 3 copies of it and am on my 4th.) Jay White, by the way, writes regularly for Texas Gardener magazine (as does Greg Grant) and their articles and columns are the first ones I read when a new magazine arrives. It is a well-known and well-understood phenomenon that healthy plants grown in healthy soil are more disease tolerant and more pest tolerant than less healthy plants. When pests relentlessly attack plants, I try to figure out what it is about those specific plants that make them less healthy and, therefore, more alluring to pests and to diseases. Sometimes it is obvious to me because the plants under attack are growing in less healthy soil. Sometimes it is something much more subtle---like cool-season plants that are beginning to be subjected to hotter temperatures than they like. Howard Garrett makes a convincing argument for us to grow our brassicas in the fall only in this part of the country because they have less pests since they are less stressed in cooler conditions---and I believe he is right about that. And, there are some pests, like grasshoppers, that relentlessly attack everything still green in the hot summer months, whether the plants are healthy and happy are not. So, for every "rule" that we observe, their is an exception, and I find grasshoppers to be one of the exceptions to the rule that healthy plants in healthy soil are not attacked by pests and diseases. I grew up eating yellow summer squash for as far back as I can remember and nothing I've ever grown as a more pest-tolerant substitute for it is 100% acceptable. When I want yellow squash, I simply want yellow squash---nothing else will do. So, in order to have it, I just grow it in low tunnel rows under row cover and hand-pollinate it. I feel like I don't have to settle for less in my own garden, and growing Tatume instead of the yellow squash I really want is, indeed, settling for less. You'll never know how you feel about Tatume until you grow it yourself. I just wasn't crazy about the flavor and didn't find it to be a really heavy producer either. To be fair to Tatume, it never will look like a heavy producer when it is grown adjacent to Seminole because Seminole outproduces it (and everything else) every single time. There is a reason Seminole is a perennial fave in our garden----it is beaten everything else for about 15 years now, and that track record is hard to break. It has been around forever....I can remember it being on seed racks in Texas when I was a child, although I think then it likely was sold as Calabacita, because that is the name that pops into my head every time I see a packet of the seeds. For squash vine borer tolerance or resistance, as George noted, C. moschatas will win every time and, for me, the C. agyrospermas like White Cushaw, Green-Striped Cushaw and Orange-Striped Cushaw are in second place. Tatume might come in third, or actually, a distant fourth behind every kind of yellow summer squash that exists when grown under row cover. YMMV. You can grow any squash or pumpkin you want if only you'll grow them under summerweight row cover, tulle netting, mosquito netting, etc. and hand-pollinate. Does it take longer and a bit more effort? Sure it does, but it is worth it to avoid the heartbreak of losing plants to the dastardly SVBs. Dawn...See Morebella_trix
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