Thanks for your hints, MD. Yup, I think this is merely insect damage. However, I find those spots too large to be only from aphids. I am guessing it is a combination of aphids, striped beetles and maybe other critters as well. I have Bug B Gon insecticide from EcoSense. I am trying to keep things organic (although I do think that chemicals are no big deal as long as you really want to care for a plant and they don't damage anything you don't mean to, like the neighbour's crop). It says here that it will control all stages of aphids, spider mites and whitefly, spittle bugs, adult and nymph stages of thrips, flea beetles, caterpillars, mealybugs, scale insects and sugar ants. It contains 0.5% pyrethrin and is lebeled as a skin irritant. Here's the deal. I don't like that it is organic AND pretends to take care of all these bugs. If it were true, then nobody would have harmful bugs anymore, so I am suspicious. Somehow, I am thinking it may be damageable to the plants and may also kill beneficials (I am very lucky to have swarms of ladybugs). Do you think the benefits of using it would outweigh the risks? If I indeed have striped beetle damage, this product wouldn't work. Can I do something against those that can be made at home or that is easily purchased? Also, I have Bug B Gon insecticide soap (supposedly controls aphids, earwigs, mealybugs, spider mites, psyllids, pear and rose slugs [sawfly larvae], soft brown scale and whitefly--the soap 47% potassium salts of fatty acids and is lebeled as a skin and eye irritant), but I still don't understand the difference between insecticide and insecticidal soap. Both are used in the same concentration, applied the same way and at the same frequency, so what is the difference? Which one should I use? Should I use one this week and the other next week and alternate? Also, I think right now would be a good time to spray. It is a bit windy, but otherwise, we have nice cloud cover. There is a risk of rain later on and all through the week. Would spraying these products during a cloudy day (daylight but cool and no sunshine) be a problem? I don't want to miss my chance. Please, help as this is about my first bug challenge and I am pretty much a noob.

zone5a east hartford, ct. first year growing watermelons and I'm pretty happy. Growing Jubilee and we've gotten 5 so far and am hoping to get a few more although i know there is not much time left. I know they are growable in CT as I used to raid the neighbors garden in the late 60s and those tasted even better than mine. I had not had any success until this year and I attribute that at least partly to following the suggestion about digging a post hole and filling it with compost. I also feel part of my success was as a result of covering the top of the soil with about 4 inches of shredded leaf compost which kept moisture in the soil even after 5 weeks of no rain here. I didn't want to water because of reading about the sugar concentration at the end of the growing cycle. At this point, about 1/3 of my plants are showing signs of fungus but the rest of the leaves are pretty green and healthy looking. Having read in an earlier post about first year always being the best as far as growing watermelons, I am wondering if I need to move my watermelon growing spot a bit and if so, how far from current one. The compost on top of the soil thing I got from watching the documentary film Back to Eden from 2011 and there is a part of me that hopes that the same spot with new compost on top might work, but I expect the smarter people will tell me that that is not going to work. Hoping to retire maybe to Delaware so I can extend the growing season in about 2 yrs. With a bit more land than 1/4 acre and a bit more warmth, maybe I can become successful in growing more varieties!!!

Not really. Consider how awful the weather has been and don't be too hard on yourself and don't blame yourself. Mother Nature has been a rather fierce opponent this year. OKRA: With the okra, as long as the plants are a healthy color and are actively blooming, they will set okra sooner or later. I've never heard of heat stopping them because they love heat. One thing that will prevent okra from doing well is if it is planted while nights are still cool. Okra that is exposed to cool nights early in the season often remains somewhat stunted and simply won't bloom or form pods. To 'kick-start' your okra, feed it with a water soluable fertilizer. If it were me, I'd use liquid seaweed or liquid fish emulsion if I thought the plants needed a general feeding. However, if the plants looked perfectly healthy and were growing well but not blooming, I'd use a chemical bloom booster like Miracle Grow Bloom Booster or Green Light Super Bloom or something similar. If their high phosphorus doesn't push your okra plants into blooming, nothing will. BELL PEPPERS: Sometimes this happens. Every plant, and every fruit or veggie on every plant, is not going to be picture-perfect. We are gardening in the real world, in fact, where very little will be picture perfect. Sometimes the rotten spots on bell peppers happen because the pepper literally outgrows the foliage on the plant and part of the pepper is exposed to too much direct sunlight. The sunlight 'sunburns' the fruit and then rot forms in the burnt sections. I just yank those peppers and toss them and plenty more come along and form after them. CUCUMBERS: Without knowing when you planted, it is hard to trouble shoot. If you are letting them sprawl on the ground, there's a chance the pollinators didn't find the blooms and pollinate them. Check carefully, too, because sometimes cucumbers can 'hide' under foliage and get overly ripe. When that happens, the fruit basically sends a chemical message to the plant that says "I'm setting seed!" and the plant slows down and stops producing because, as far as it is concerned, its mission is accomplished because it has already set seed to perpetuate the species. Search carefully for and remove every cucumber that grows while it is at its peak and don't let any get overly ripe. Cucumber production slows down in extreme heat, so planting early enough in spring that they can grow and set cukes before extreme heat arrives is important. This year, the extreme heat arrived very early--we essentially had August heat in June, so that heat has been hard on the cucumbers this year. Cucumbers are extra-sensitive to moisture stress, so if you let them get too dry once or twice, their productivity stops too. It is hard to water cucumbers too much, and you can't say that about many other things, except maybe pumpkins. A lack of cucumbers for weeks on healthy plants that are blooming would signal a lack of pollinators. If you don't have bees and tiny wasps in your garden performing the pollination task, you'll have to hand-pollinate. It these were my cukes, and if they had been in the ground since..oh, let's say, early May, and were this nonproductive, I'd yank them out and replant with seeds for fall cukes. WATERMELONS: These are the hardest to grow well in terms of water management. I like for mine to get heavy watering while the vines are young and growing. Once fruit set occurs, I cut way back and try as much as possible not to water them at all. It may sound impossible to grow them 'dryland' with no irrigation in southern OK's scorching heat, but it is not impossible at all. If you fertilize well at planting time and water heavily and, most importantly, very deeply, the first few weeks, your watermelons will form very deep root systems that can pull in enough moisture to get the melons through the dry parts of the summer with no supplemental watering. You cannot, of course, control the rainfall. Still, if you are careful to avoid overfertilizing and overwatering, the splitting will go away. I plant watermelons, baby them the first month, and then pretend they don't exist for a while. I don't even look at them--they are on the edge of the garden, so easy to ignore. After I've ignored them for a few weeks, I check and usually have nice, half-grown melons. Then, I have to ignore them again or I get the urge to water them. (That's a bad urge.) As you known, the splitting is from too much moisture. If the flesh inside is whitish or off-colored, that's a sign of too much fertilizer. If they are rotting on the vine from the blossom end up, that's blossom end rot caused by uneven moisture levels. MUSKMELON: Hale's Best is not a bad muskmelon (we improperly call them cantaloupes in this country, but they are not true cantaloupes) but too much water will dilute the flavor. Are you sure you let it get fully ripe? Did you harvest before it reached the 'full slip' stage? If it wasn't fully ripe, it would be lacking in flavor too. If you are gardening on clay, the melons (muskmelons and watermelons) will do better in faster-draining raised beds that won't hold water as long as heavier-draining clay soil does. Melons do best in sandier soil that 'cannot' hold excess water because it drains too quickly. I think it would be exceptionally hard to raise watermelons in earthboxes unless you raise Bush Sugar Baby or something very small. For the other plants, raised beds and careful timing of planting (to beat the heat) probably will give you good results and make the expense of Earthboxes unnecessary. You also have to have some luck, too, and this year almost all the gardening luck has been of the 'bad' kind. This was a VERY difficult spring. We had recurring near-freezing nights way too late in the year to plant at our normal or 'recommended' times here in southern OK. We had way too much rain in late April/the first half of May which further delayed planting OR stunted growth of plants in the ground. We had early August heat in June. If you were a plant, how would you do in those conditions? Your plants are performing a lot like everyone else's so I just don't think it is your fault. Everything in my garden has been 4 to 8 weeks late to produce if it produces at all. I haven't changed how I do things, and I usually have a highly productive garden, so I think it is the weather. Luckily, we get a second chance with the fall garden and now is the time to be getting ready for the fall gardening, planting stuff, starting seeds, etc. Hang in there. Every now and then we have a good weather year. It just so happens we haven't had one this year. Next year likely will be much better better, partly because El Nino is returning. Dawn

Wow. I feel your pain. Such a disaster is hard on any gardener, but especially discouraging to a newbie. Your excellent video allows me to confirm your diagnosis of powdery mildew running rampant thru your garden, squash bug eggs & nymphs on leaves, and bacterial wilt spread by the cucumber beetles... Knowing your enemy is at least half the battle! Do not give in to despair and do not give up! The Gardener's Mantra is "There's always next year!" Meantime, visit your local farmers' markets to get the veggies your garden has failed to provide. Let me point out, before offering suggestions for next year's garden, that it would be helpful when you ask any garden question here to say what zone you are in since there are five (!) different zones in PA (I lived some years W of Philly, then E of Pittsburgh). If you are unsure, see http://www.growit.com/bin/USDAZoneMaps.exe?MyState=pa (You could add the zone and general geographic area or city by your GW username, as I have done.) Powdery mildew: the spores are everywhere, and the fungus proliferates during cool, moist nighttime conditions (which is why one should never water the lawn or garden after about 3:00 PM--give the leaves a chance to dry off before dark,--and always try to water the base of plants, not the foliage, at any time). A really healthy plant usually can withstand this at least for some time before succumbing. Always, when ordering seeds, it is wise to look for cultivars/varieties that are resistant to various diseases and purchase those. There also are organic fungicides that will prevent or control such diseases as black spot, powdery mildew, various blights, etc. Gardens Alive (with which I have no connection aside from that of customer) has a lot of good products, but so have other companies. Shop around on line as the advertising dollars of these product manufacturers are no match for the big chemical companies and so you won't find much yet in the big stores. Still, there are lots more organic products available locally than there were previously. (Not much at all when I began gardening organically over 40 years ago.) Your melons that are rotted on the end are a prime example of blossom end rot; on cucurbits generally due to alternating extremes of moisture -- water/drought. (Rather than me re-inventing the wheel & taking up extra space here, please look up terms you may not understand, like blossom end rot, in Gardenweb's glossary or other online source.) For now, pick off and compost affected fruits; they are simply using nutrients your plant could better spend elsewhere. Read on to learn of possible solution for the future. And yes--you are right again in noting that cucumber beetles are the vector for bacterial wilt--about which I am sorry to tell you NOTHING may be done once it has set in. Your vines are goners. But there are solutions; read on! But do not start spraying any chemical pesticides--or if you have, stop it!!! These kill honeybees as well as natural predators like tachnid flies, soldier beetles, parasitic nematodes, braconid wasps, lacewings, ladybugs, and others that will help in the battle against pest species. There are such things as bioinsecticides if you must spray, but read on... From what I see of your soil, you need LOTS more organic matter--compost, compost, compost! This would make for healthier plants that then would be more resistant to and be able to ward off attacks from pest insects and disease. In addition to adding nutrients to the soil, organic matter acts like a sponge, allowing the soil to absorb water and hold it for release as plants need it. You cannot have too much organic matter in your soil. (My raised beds are filled entirely with pure compost I purchased by the trailer load from our local municipal yard waste facility. No "top soil.") You need to use lots of MULCH. If you have home-made compost that is still not quite "finished," it makes an excellent mulch (use 1-2") to be added right after planting your seedlings or, if you direct-seeded, once the seeds are several inches high. After the soil has warmed up completely and the vines have just started to run, top that (the area under and around to either side of the plants at least 12h out) with lots of chopped leaves (saved from the previous autumn) or straw (NOT hay, which is full of weed seeds!), using 4-6" of that. This will provide 3 benefits: hold in soil moisture, keep weed seeds from germinating, and add more organic matter to the soil as it decays, and encourage the soil microorganisms and invertebrates. Take all the help you can get from Naturefs laborers! Some people may recommend using black plastic as mulch. Don't. It adds nothing to the soil, the soil cannot "breathe" (actually, the soil microorganisms die), no more moisture can get to the root systems, it will photo degrade, making a mess in the garden, the toxic chemicals released as the plastic degrades do not belong in the garden...etc., etc.. (Have you caught on yet that I am advising ONLY organic methods?) In addition to concentrating on building up soil fertility (and fall is an excellent time to amend soil (see GW's SOILS forum!) and the use of bioinsecticides, you also would have better luck with controlling insect pests by the early use of floating row cover (spun polyester fabric, widely available online and at larger nurseries; one brand is Reemay) over seedlings. Leave it on until female flowers appear (not just male flowers, which generally appear several days or more prior to the females) since bees will need to pollinate them. By then the plants should be strong enough to resist insects & disease to some extent. Also, again, read the descriptions of squash & cukes in the catalogs, looking for those that are parthenogenic (a ten-dollar botanist's term for plants that need not have a male partner to set fruit. ('Diva' is a cultivar I plant. Nice for slicing or pickling.) Except for a few minutes removal to pick your lovely cucumbers each day or so as they ripen you can leave the row cover on 24/7 to exclude beetles! You asked: "Is there any disease going to be leftover in the soil? Is there something I can do to eliminate any disease left in the soil so it is gone for next year?" The mildew spores are in the air, as I mentioned earlier; the spray I mentioned will help with that. The beetles spread bacterial wilt. The insects are what you want to get rid of. You should squash the squash bug eggs as soon as you see them. There also are organic products like cuke beetle traps and insecticidal oil sprays that smother insects & their eggs. Look for those on line, too. Most importantly, clean up all garden residues & compost it in a hot, active pile (easy to mak; check out the compost forum here or at any of several good composting websites) or else burn it to destroy over-wintering eggs or larvae. From Cornell: "Cucumbers and cantaloupe are susceptible to bacterial wilt and should be treated within 24 hours if plants along the edges are heavily damaged or have 5 or more beetles per plant. Following the first treatment, apply follow-up treatments only if there is at least one beetle per plant." Guess this is really long enough. Check with your Penn State cooperative extension office for more info. Sorry; once I get going I tend to ramble on. :-) Hope I helped a bit, even if only with ideas for next year. I do want to add that you did a great job on your trellises, and you did well to make slings for the growing melons. (Looks like maybe you have a good reference book, maybe Square Foot Gardening?). Also, putting boards under the ripening melons was good since they are not trellised. I am curious, though: what's with the hardware cloth (woven wire) I see lying on the ground? Best wishes, CK