I am still picking off svb eggs, but less than ten a day. My seminole ang yokohama vines are really taking off. I bury the runners everyday at their curly cues. My summer squash are surviving still as well and are flowering. I may actually get some this year! I kind of like this later crop thing....

I've been looking up different varieties of c. Moschata. Lets face it they are space hogs. I plantred the Seminole hoping it would shade out bind weed, but the bind weed is beginning to crawl above the plant. I think bind weed likes hot weather. Somewhere I read that someone had success growing them in hay bales. (Squash, not bind weed) DH wants to try that. I could put them along the fence and mulch around them so they could root without the weeds growing up to look messy. (Seems like the bales would look messy...) Mulch and bales composted or used elsewhere the following year. So then the issue is how to get squash bugs out of the mulch and bales so they don't over winter. I'm thinking out loud here. Has anyone done the straw bale method? Seems like it would be a little like Larry's wood chips, only not permanent.

Amy, I have been fooling around with shredded leaves and pine shavings as mulch for no more than 5 or 6 years. I have had trouble with squash bugs all my gardening life. I expect that bug do overwinter in the mulch, both good and bad bugs. I wont let the fear of bugs stop me from using mulch. One thing that I have noticed is that I have birds everywhere. I am not sure what they are eating, but they like it enough to keep coming back for more. I really believe I have less problems with insects now than I did when I used insecticide often.

Larry

I'm sorry!
I'm having the same woes!
Now that I know the good bugs from the bad bugs (or so I thought), I was able to bring my yellow summer squash and zucchini plants "back". I was expecting to harvest a few in a couple of days--had planned for them in my weekly menu even. Apparently, I've missed something. Yes, I recognize a squash bug, their babies, and their eggs now--but I completely missed the squash vine borers.
This morning I glanced at the plants--all was well.
Went to the farmers market, Gilliams, lunch; came home and the plants were completely wilted-- lying down. The fruit was squishy.
I just read this thread last night, so I sorta knew what to look for--that frass stuff that you talk about. Yep. My plants had it.
Looked over at my pumpkins that have been suffering--it's vine borers! I opened up them up and they were full of those white caterpillars. Yuck! I pulled them all up and put them in a black plastic bag. After I spent an hour picking squash bug eggs off the leaves last night.. Sigh. Everything is gone now except the cucumbers. Cut the sunflowers down too, except one that an assassin bug has made into his home.

I have learned a LOT this summer.

What do SVB eggs look like? Are they copper colored too, but not in clusters?

I find the SVB squash bugs to be reddish in color and a tad smaller in size than SB eggs. And they lay them individually all over the place along the vines, on the fruit, atop the leaves, but preferably at the base or stem.

While I know there was some SVB leaf damage to the tromboncino (I know, I have been spelling it wrong all summer.) I am now seeing squash bug damage, so some of it's problems could have been caused by squash bugs. It's not an easy set up for bug control, but I think I will take the shop vac out this evening. Would it help or hurt to put some fish emulsion on the plants? Would that be too much nitrogen?

We were looking at the cantelope vine today, which is to the left of the archway, and DH pointed out the tromboncino fruit. Bugger has intertwined with the cantelope. These definately need room to spread out.

Larry, I saw birds going down below the Seminole leaves one day after something. I also saw a Mocking bird with a grasshopper. I haven't seen the mocker in quite a while and I am seeing more grasshoppers every day. We don't have enough trees any more, though.

Hazel, SVBs are evil. They are red moths but they look more like a wasp. I have chased them around all summer, but probably I only harrassed them a little. I have seen 2 generations so far. Wondering if there is another to come. As Bon said, the eggs are not easy to find. I have not seen adults in the last week. After the bleepers suck the life out of squash vines from the inside, they drop down into the soil to pupate. I googled their lifecycle and found pictures of these pupae and plan to keep an eye out for them when cleaning up this fall.

Here is a link that might be useful: SVB lifecycle.

Larry, I looked for Brazillian butternut and couldn't find anyone selling seeds. Does it have another name?

Amy, look up" Menina Rajada Seca". I can never remember the proper name, so just call it Brazilian Butternut. You will have a hard time finding seeds, but if that is your cup of tea, also look up "Long of Naples". They look much alike and you can find seeds for Long of Naples. I only grew the Menina Rajada Seca one time. I think it is too productive for any home gardener. It keeps well and butchers easily.

Yeah a quick google didn't turn up an obvious seed source, I have seen the long of Naples. I don't know what I would do with 400 pounds of squash, though I like winter squash better than summer squash. Just curious. I've already got 3 moschatas on my Baker Creek wish list, LOL.

I cleaned up some of the dead stuff on this plant today. One vine was riddled with borer holes. I found a few still in vines and they met the scissors. Wonder why that one vine was so susceptible. Not much damage on the other vines. I cut a vine that went to one of the hanging squash, so it gets cooked today. Not quite hard skinned yet. The "vine" that broke turned out to be a radish stem the vine was growing up. (They are a bit tangled up with radishes going to seed, buckwheat and a few flowers) My jungle drives my husband crazy, but I din't see squash BUGS here till way after everone else was cursing them. Borer moths, yes, but not the bugs. I think the radishes and petunias helped.

I haven't seen the second generation of SVBs. Maybe I killed enough of the first generation that they didn't get a chance to give birth to the next generation. I only have C. moschatas left growing at this point, though, and while I have seen SVBs attempt to tunnel through them some years, they rarely succeed. Occasionally I see a squash bug here or there but kill them when I find them and so far they haven't done significant harm to any of my plants. The only place I've been seeing squash bugs recently is on some volunteer Armenian cucumber plants that have been producing for months and which mostly are nearing the end of their productive period anyway

Amy, It is hard to guess why they hit one plant and don't cause nearly as much damage to another one right beside it, but it happens. My theory is that the damaged plant was weaker for some reason as I know from experience that weaker plants become bug magnets. It could be something as simple as voles or gophers chewing on the roots of one plant but not another.

Dawn

Dang, saw an adult moth on the Seminole a few minutes ago! Will they never go away?

Amy, with Seminole, I think I'd just pay no attention to squash vine borers. It is quite unlikely that they will be able to do much, if any damage to that variety. C. moschatas are resistant. Seminole is probably among the most resistant of the c. moschatas... might even eat the little buggers. (Just joking).

George

Ha! I'd feed it hambugers like Little Shop of Horrors if it would eat vine borers! I'm just tired of looking at them. Hmmm, wonder if Venus flytraps would eat them, LOL.

Weeping and gnashing of teeth...there will be no spaghetti squash this year....sigh. Little devil bugs!!

Sharon

My seminole vines are just crazy as well. I have had to baby my summer squash, keep the SVBs away, keep the aphids away etc... the seminole plants seems to be free of most pests. I get the occasional leaf infested with aphids on it, but I am impressed. Problem is, I think I have 6 or 7 of them, along with 4 or 5 yokohama vines. There may not be much room left in the garden soon.

Krf I'm glad you're smart to plant seminole. My 2 tone gourds snow are toast. Now they're after my bottle gourd plant. They don't seem as happy though. Little spots all over the furry gourd leaves is telling. Not sure if my pumpkin vines will make it.

Wow, so I smashed three SVB moths today. I thought I was done with them for a few weeks. I wonder if this is a new crop? My summer squash are just setting fruit, I have no idea if they are gonna make it or not. I just do not have the time to go through the large plants now. I did smash about 5 SVB eggs today.... *sigh*

kfrinkle, The ones you're seeing now seem a little late for the second generation, but I cannot imagine there's already been time for two generations and that the ones you're seeing now are a third.

I think I saw the first SVB moth in my garden in Love County in very late June. I tried to kill them all, and might have succeeded because I haven't seen a second generation. So, at my house, any that appeared now would be the second generation, as far as I can tell. If you had your first generation appear earlier in June and then had a second generation appear in either late July or early August, then this ought to be the tail end of the 2nd generation. If you are positive you've already seen two separate generations and then had a few weeks without any but have some now again, you might be seeing a 3rd, though I've never seen 3 generations here in one year myself.

Dawn

Stupid little buggers. I've been trying to vacuum up squah bugs, but my new dust buster doesn't like to run that long.

Larry, we cubed the first matue tromboncino and roasted it in the oven. (Pretty bland) but my daughter threw some in the pan with the leftover spaghetti sauce and she said it was real good that way. An option for seasoning. I think the summer squash would be good in tomato sauce.

You'd be right about that, Amy. I core, stuff and simmer summer squash in mater sauce.

Killed another this morning while in the garden. It landed 3 feet from me on a squash leaf. Boy, he chose the wrong time and wrong place. That being said, finished up my morning garden rounds, started walking into the office and saw one flying down the road. I almost dropped my stuff and ran after it in an attempt to kill it. It was only a block from my garden, figured I knew where it was going. My wife suggested I invest in a butterfly net, I think she might be onto something there.

The dollar tree in owasso had kids butterfly nets. Yes I tried that, but I am too slow. I also sprayed them with hairspray, which will knock them down so you can step on them. They would land on ground cherries and beans just to mock me. Hate them!

Try one of those bug zappers that is the size of a tennis racket. I have heard they work pretty well. I have never tried one or seen one so I don't know if they are tightly woven so the bug will not get thru the webbing before it gets zapped. Of course, this only works if the bug is flying and you happen to be holding the zapper when you see the bug you are trying to kill.

Butterfly net....fly swatter....portable/rechargeable hand-held vaccum cleaner or portable/rechargeable shop vac.....so many possibilities exist.

Dawn, I think this may be round three! I went over to check on my garden before I headed into the office, 4 moths flying around. The worst part? One was small, like it had just hatched small..... I am hoping my seminole and yokohama vines are ready for the hit.

Seminole and Yokohama are both C. moschata and really, really, really ought to be able to survive the SVBs you're seeing now. Still, if they were my plants, if the vines are running on the surface of the ground, I'd heap up soil over the vines every few feet to encourage them to root into the soil there. That would increase the odds that most of the plant would survive if a particularly tenacious SVB grub managed to tunnel into the plant and eat away inside the vine. I still don't think I've ever lost a Seminole to SVBs, but one year I lost Black Futsu, which is similar to Yokohama, to what I believe was SVBs, though I never did cut into the vine to see if the danged little brats were in there.

If you're seeing three generations this year, that is worrisome, but I have heard other anecdotal reports from other gardeners in southern OK some years who believed they had 3 generations too, so it seems likely that it might happen every now and then.

I have been heaping soil at every curly cue on the vines.

And yes, this is def third gen. I killed two more moths in five minutes thus afternoon, pulled one summer squash with three grubs in it. Grrrrr....

I know that I just contributed to the local population. I feel sorry for anyone in the area who will be growing pepo or maximas next year. My 2 tone gourds were riddled with SVB.

My pumpkins are Moshata and they haven't harmed it. I can tell they tried. Same with my bottle gourds.

Dawn, if I may ask. How do you eat your Seminole (or any Moshata) varieties? I've recently ordered some Moshata's for next year. I decided not to give up since harvesting these wonderful pumpkins. I've no experience with taste, though. Just trying to get an idea. I'm sure they must taste well. Otherwise, you wouldn't bother growing them.

Bon

kfrinkle, Wow. Three generations. I only had one. That has got to mean two things: (1) somehow I managed to kill them all, and (2) no one within a couple of miles of me had any either or their second generation would have flown here and found my garden. Or, maybe our second generation here in Love County made a wrong turn and traveled to your county instead and, since it took them a while, they became your third generation. : )

Bon, You can use them in any recipe that calls for pumpkin---pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, pumpkin muffins, etc. You can use them in any recipe for pumpkin soup. (oh yum yum yum). You can use them in pumpkin gnocchi. Pumpkin ravioli. Pumpkin Chowder. You can use them in pumpkin anything.

About the best pumpkin dish ever (well, maybe second best because I love Pumpkin Pie Cake) is from Amy Goldman's squash book, "The Compleat Squash", and I posted it here years ago. It is a recipe for a Southwestern style chowder featuring winter squash/pumpkin and corn, and other yummy things. Wow, that really was a few years ago. I'll see if I can find the old thread and link it because I am too lazy to do that much typing tonight. I'm older now and my fingers get tired more easily. (grin)

With Moschatas, their rind is really tough to cut, especially if they are well-cured. Don't blame me if it practically takes a chain saw to cut one in half. I didn't create these hard-shelled varmints....I just like to sing their praise.

You can use your C. moschatas in any recipe that calls for canned pumpkin (it is fairly hard to find recipes any more that actually have you start out with raw pumpkin, lol) and, remember, pretty much all the canned pumpkin grown/processed in this country just happens to be C. moschatas. Those orange Jack-o-lantern type pumpkins are not what you're eating when you buy canned pumpkin. Is that shocking news?

If I can think of any other really interesting pumpkin recipes, I'll come back tomorrow and tell you about them. I have to think about it for a while because my brain is older and slower than it used to be.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: The Old Thread With The Recipe (s)

Oh what a blessing of treasured information heading to my printer ! I'm sure I won't be disappointed in taste because I've nothing to compare except the stupid store-bought kind. But I have no idea. Never know like my trial with
San Marazano tomatoes .... Yuck! hehe

And if George is correct (he usually is) I'm going to have a lot of pumpkin to eat.

Well I am a little envious of you that have squash and pumpkins since hail got all mine BUT I live just north of the pumpkin capital Floydada Tx. And when I drove by there last night there are already trailers full of huge beautiful pumpkins. I will be there for the festival to pick up a load. I am going to try canning them this year.
Kim

I cut my first Seminole in half, scraped out the seeds, put a pat of butter in the cavity, put the halves in a baking dish and roasted at 350 for an hour. This is how I cook acorn squash. You can add salt and pepper or brown sugar, depending on your taste preference. I have seen similar things done with pumpkins and great big squash.

I used the Pioneer Woman's method for making pumpkin puree for the compost pumpkin. I will link it here. She used 2 small pumpkins, you just cut a large pumpkin into similar sizzed pieces.

Now to go read Dawn's link!

Here is a link that might be useful: pumpkin puree

Well, Kim.. I have pumpkins but no canning knowledge. We should hook up LOL If you were close, you'd be canning some of mine!

Amy, I think pumpkin pie is coming soon. The stem was damaged on the first pumpkin and it has a different color. So, I'm making excuses in my mind not to wait another month for the seeds to be fully viable. Listen to me making excuses. I need to just do it! hahaha

bon

Because I mentioned Pumpkin Pie Cake once or twice, I thought to myself, why not mention it three or four more times since it is so incredibly good? If you're going to grow pumpkins, you've got to have lots of ways to prepare them because, as long as you're growing C. moschata types, you're going to have more pumpkins than you can shake a stick at. I feel fortunate that we have a type of winter squash we can grow here that is practically immune to SVB damage.

So, I've linked the recipe below. This is the lightened-up, healthier version of a family recipe that someone sent in to Cooking Light magazine.

I knew it had been a few years since I bought that issue of the magazine and made this cake, but I truly cannot believe it is from the Nov. 2005 issue. 2005???? Wow. That means I've been making this cake a lot longer than I thought. There's been a lot of Seminole (and other) squash and pumpkins grown here since 2005.

Kim, I am so jealous. I wish I lived near the pumpkin capital of anywhere. (grin) Before the SVBs found our garden, I grew 20-30 types a year and had the most awesome displays of winter squash and pumpkins piled up all over the place. They made the most amazingly gorgeous displays along with gourds, "Red Stalker" corn stalks, broom corn flowerheads, grain amaranth flowerheads, and a few pots of mums, marimums and marigolds. Now, I just grow a few moschata types, not that there is anything wrong with that, but I miss the days when I could grow any type that I wanted to grow and then could enjoy them outdoors for long thereafter.

Today's cool, rainy weather has me dreaming of autumn and that makes me hungry for apple pie jam, apple cider and pumpkin everything. We still have a few summer-like days this week to get through first, but I do believe autumn-like weather will arrive here in a few days, and I'll celebrate it in the kitchen cooking something that includes pumpkin.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Cooking Light's Pumpkin Pie Cake Recipe

I did find a few squash plants and okra that survived the hail. They were on the south side of chain link fence and the hail came from the north so I guess it slowed it down yay!
I hope they survive the squash bugs I found on the remains of the other squash. I didn't pull it yet, not sure what to do there.
Bon you could cook it and freeze in zipper bags. I have never tried canning it but will give it a go this year.
Dawn I have gone the last 3 years and it is a blast there are so many pumpkins and gourds. I am curious about how the huge white ones taste so I am going to get one of those this year
kim

Best way we have found is to bake them whole. Dont cut in half or anything. When a knife goes into the squah easily, it is done. Then cut in half and scoop out seedy stuff.

The white ones aren't my favorites for baking into pies, cakes or other baked goods. They seem (at least to my taste buds) to be milder than most other pumpkin varieties, and by mild I mean very weakly flavored. Some folks have described the flesh of white pumpkins as being sort of like a potato. I don't know that I ever thought that, but I was not particularly fond of any of the ones we've grown, except as novelties. The flesh of white pumpkins, by the way, is orange.

Lumina was the first white one I grew, and it probably is the one whose flavor we liked the best of all the white ones. Baby Boo I grew merely as a novelty for autumn decorations so never tasted one of them, and Valenciano was not memorable in any sort of a good way. There are a lot of pumpkins that are better for jack-o-lanterns or other decorative uses than for eating, and except for Lumina, I think the white ones might be in that group. Some of them have pretty stringy flesh. Well, I grew Casper once and it grew really well but I don't even remember anything about its flavor or texture.

Keep in mind that pumpkins with white rinds tend to be either C. maxima or C. pepo, so keeping the plants alive long enough to produce an edible pumpkin may be difficult, unless you're having one of those mysteriously SVB-free years we have every few years.

Canning pumpkin is a PITA. The only safety-approved recipe for canned pumpkin that I can think of is for pressure-canning cubed pumpkin only, and it takes almost an hour for pints and maybe 85-90 minutes for quarts. That recipe is on the NCHFP website. There are no safety-approved recipes for canning pumpkin as a puree or as mashed pumpkin. I believe that the reason why has to do with density and heat penetration (or lack of such) when it is mashed or pureed.

I love canning and can something several times per week, but I don't know why anyone would go to the trouble to remove the rind and cube the pumpkin and then spend an hour or two canning it when it stores just fine in its own rind. : )

Oh my gaaaaah that looks heavenly!!!

My first pumpkin puree is in the works. Thanks, Amy!

They were out in swarms this morning.... Man this is horribly depressing. I killed six in my garden, six! That was going out twice. I finally had to tear myself away to go to work. *sigh*

I'm so sorry, kfr it's the same here!

Youre right Dawn , I read that about canning last year and promptly forgot it and thought that's a lot of work but I don't have anywhere to overwinter them yet. so I will probably roast, puree/smash and freeze in bags. Some of my acorn squash and butternuts did fine in a cool room but the pumpkins did not.
kim

I am amazed the SVB moths still are out this late. I suppose we can blame that on our hot-cold-hot-cold weather pattern we had in June and July, though August mostly stayed hot (at least it did down here). I suspect the overall-cooler weather with recurring bouts of rain and coolness probably made them really happy all summer long, which is unfortunate.

Kim, It kinda sucks that pumpkin is hard to can (by hard I just mean time-consuming, especially since you have to cut it into cubes). I agree that pumpkins that are C. pepo and C. maxima don't last as long in storage, whole and intact, as C. moschatas, and that's another reason I grow mostly C. moschata winter squash. By the time we are getting a substantial number of them to put up for future meals, my three freezers are full anyway, so freezing them would be hard because it just gets to a point that I cannot squeeze one more thing into the deep freezes.

Mine are still blooming and setting new squash, so the harvest may continue for a long time yet. On the other hand, the voles are moving right towards them and could eat their roots any night now. They've killed all of three beds of southern peas, but then skipped all the cucumber plants, and started in on moss rose plants growing between the cukes and the Seminole pumpkins. Now that they've wiped out the moss rose, I expect they'll head SE towards the Seminoles, or they'll have to backtrack to the NW towards the cucumbers. They haven't touched zinnia roots yet, and zinnias are all over the place, so maybe they'll hit the zinnias and not touch the edible plants.

The voles are making me crazy, and I guess they are the price I pay for planting into a sandier loam soil in the back garden. They've never been a problem in the front garden like they are in the back garden, except for them getting into the potatoes last year.

It is sort of ironic that it may be voles that take out my winter squash while everyone else is dealing with SVBs. I wish that, in a period when there's no SVBs here there also would be no voles here. Ain't likely to happen though. : )

Dawn

Vacuumed up squash bugs today. They are moving away from the Seminole because it is 90 % dead. I brought in several pumpkins. The stems keep snapping off. Will the green ones ripen off the plant? One of the off shoots, rooted in the grass has wilted, vine borer style. Wonder if I could get away with burning it. DH would never agree to that...There is bind weed growing in with this plant that looks like it has mildew, white, powdery looking stuff, which the pumpkin did not have. Any chance I've discovered a bindweed disease?

Are you carrying them by the stems? That can cause them to snap off. So can pulling them from the vine. To prevent stem damage, I always cut them off the vines and carry them by holding their bodies, not their stems. There's nothing worse than harming your own harvest by damaging the stems. When the stem separates prematurely, bacteria and fungi can invade and cause rot.

Sometimes green ones will color up after they are cut off the vine, but it largely depends on how green they are. For most pumpkins in general, earlier in their lives, the pumpkins are a lighter green, and then they get really dark green as they near maturity and then they begin to turn orange. Right? So, if your pumpkins are already at the dark green stage, there's a good chance they are mature enough to continue ripening off the vine. Keep them in a warm, dry location. If it is possible to put them out in the sun, you can do that. Having sunlight hit the greenest part of the mostly mature but still green pumpkin can help it ripen up. However, in our intense sunlight (which is getting less intense each day as we move into autumn), they could sunscald so I wouldn't put them in full sun for the whole day. If the stem is completely severed from the pumpkin, the poor thing is more likely to become diseased and to rot before it turns orange.

With Seminoles specifically, I always have harvested all of the ones left on the plant right before the last frost, no matter their size or color, and virtually all of them went on to turn their mature buff color despite being stored in a cool, dry garage with no sunlight and moderately cool temperatures. In some cases it has taken a month or more, but then after they turn their mature buff color about 90% of them will store for many months. About 10% of them, however, generally begin to rot even though they colored up just fine. I'm assuming those were just less mature than the rest.

Bindweed is subject to many diseases, which (sadly) don't seem to kill the bindweeds very often, but which insects transfer from the bindweeds to desirable plants. Even a type of fusarium can infect bindweed (I hope it kills the bindweed but somehow I doubt it). That's one reason to pull out bindweed when you see it. I'm trying to think of the word to use for it....I guess you could say it harbors diseases. Not much will kill bindweed, unfortunately.

By the way, if you have some winter squash that only formed from a flower within the last day or two, you can slice them up and use them just like summer squash. I often harvest them at the end of their first day that they formed from a flower and use them as summer squash. The only difference between squash fruit that we use as summer squash versus winter squash is that with summer squash fruit, we harvest them when they are very immature and use them immediately, whereas with winter squash fruit we let them fully mature and then use them. So, almost any winter squash fruit can be harvested while very immature and used as summer squash...and almost any summer squash can be left on the vine until they get very large and their rind toughens....although their flesh is different and I don't use it as a winter squash because overly mature, hardened summer squash lack the quality of mature winter squash.

With any squash, winter or summer, or pumpkins (remember all pumpkins are winter squash but not all winter squash are pumpkins) that are immature or overly mature and not suitable for us humans, I just chop them or slice them and throw them on the compost pile. The deer, rabbits, possums, skunks, etc. will visit the compost pile and devour every bit. At our place, they don't last long enough to decompose.

DH works with a guy who takes our past prime garden goods to feed his pet turtle, Most of it gets composted, though. The stems broke when I tried to pull it off the plant. I will cook them and freeze them. I planted the pumpkin there because I read thar a pumpkin crop helped farmers clear bindweed from a field, reducing problems for several years. MY bindweed was not impressed, though I don't think it liked the Mexican Marigolds I planted for the same reason. The marigolds don't look like they will bloom, though. Next year I will plant more, and start earlier.

Not gonna let this thread die until all the SVB moths die. Went out yesterday early afternoon and within 5 minutes killed 4 moths. Won't these things die already?

Amy, The pumpkin vines will shade out the bindweed if you repeatedly grow them for at least 3 years and plant thickly. If you grow it kinda like a 3 sisters garden (skipping the beans, so I guess it is a two sisters garden) and grow closely spaced corn with the pumpkins growing underneath the corn, the two together shade out the bindweed. However, if you come back the next year and plant something else there that has less dense foliage, then BAM! The bindweed is right back growing like mad. Concrete, nice thick concrete---that is the bindweed solution.

kfrinkle, The quick answer is No, they won't.

With them being there this late, there's not a single doubt in my mind that you do indeed have a third generation. This is just crazy. There's only been one year when I might have had a third generation, but I wasn't sure because the first generation was late, so it might have been that the second generation was really late as well and it only seemed like a third. Since you have had these things since, when, June? That seems to me like a third generation if they're still around in late September. At the rate things are going, you may have them still hanging around in October. They can survive for roughly 6 weeks, continually laying eggs, per generation. So, if you've had more than 12 weeks of them (I bet you're up to 16 weeks at least), you've got the dreaded 3rd generation of them sometimes seen south (usually further south than you and I are). Because you have so many, it will be really important to till up the soil where the squash grew a couple of times in the winter, preferably when it is very, very cold so you can expose the overwintering ones to weather cold enough to kill them.

If you have chickens or other poultry, or can borrow some for a day or two, they will work their way through a freshly rototilled garden in late fall, eating all the weed seeds and digging and scratching and searching the soil for yummy insects and grubs to eat.

You've had more this year than I've ever heard of. I haven't seen any in weeks, making me think something killed them off here. I don't know what it was. I still have lots of cucurbits, but haven't seen an SVB moth in months---not since late June or early July, which would have been Generation #1. I do have a few squash bugs around, but not enough to do much harm to anything.

Dawn

Yeah, they have been in my garden since early June. They stunted my cucumbers to the point that the aphids could do damage to them.

I am definitely going to have to till a couple of times, time to borrow the neighbours tiller!

A few mornings ago, I went out and found over 30 eggs on a single yokohama plant (on one shoot only). It was ridiculous, like some moth just went crazy and laid all her eggs in a 1 foot radius. At least it was easy to deal with. Funny thing is that I have two gardens, separated by 500 feet and a road and two houses. In one garden, I see the moths flying around and can get them with a butterfly net and kill them. In the other, smaller garden (my back yard) I have NEVER seen them this summer. I do not know when they are doing their evil deeds, but it is not at the times that they are visiting my other garden.

I just hope they slow down a bit. I have probably killed 30+ moths in September.

I was hand tilling the soil ... over the last few days. Scores of young SVB moths have been running out. Should see the squash bugs in the cucurbit vines. Holy squash-a-molee!! I've strung miles of extension cords with the vaccum in the end. My son and I have been very slowly crawling through and sucking them all up !!

I wish I knew someone with chickens. Would be easier to build a chicken wire fence and fill it with chickens!!