We put in a raised beds this year, ph good in dirt, fertility tested good. I grew plants from seeds. Cucumbers have whatever this is,the worst, then the squash, the watermelons and the pumpkins. I have been to neighboring gardens and to the local worm's way. I have also tried lookoing at other people's problem pics. First I tried cutting off all infected leaves and spraying with Garden Safe fungicide 3. It was back in 2 days. It is on the leaves, stems and fruit.It will not rub off the leaves like a fungus, but you can scrape it off the stem and it seems like it is thick and yellow. The leaves are being shredded by something, it looks like caterpillar damage but I am out there a lot and not one caterpillar. I have treated for slugs repeatedly. We have had a huge amount of rain almost every day for about 2 1/2 weeks. We used pine needles for mulch. the pumpkins and watermelon has some compost around them since planting. Everything was fertilized once with fish and seaweed. When I showeed it to the worm's way guy, he said it looked like leaf damage from something and he said aphids because there were a couple by chance on that leaf. there are a few aphids in the garden but not on most of the affected leaves. Tonight I sprayed an organic insecticide, but there aren't hardly any insects. I am really stumped, and am getting very worried that there isn't going to be any harvest from this garden. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Looks perfectly normal to me. A "slant"? It's probably leaning towards the light. Melons are vines, so they aren't going to grow straight up like a tree. They lay on the ground. In a few weeks the plant will be spilling over the side of your pot.

Okay, Ken - you're definitely a very good enabler/instigator! After posting this on Saturday, I thought: well, I'll just go take a look at that hosta. Four or five hours later (I really hadn't planned on working outside that day) I had partly revamped one of my beds, and now have only one potted hosta on the deck - there were four previously. It was no small thing to wrestle that BMEs out of the pot - the shape of it is such that it curves inward at the top. But after I got it out... you were right, there was very little potting media left. So then I had to decide what to do with it... and I had some empty places in one bed that receives only morning sun. I thought about splitting it and spreading it around a bit, but then I decided to get those other hostas off the deck and experiment... I took Fire Island out of it's pot - also with great difficulty - and it had a similar situation: Next came Wheee! - it had a nice root system, but wasn't as much trouble as the other two. Bottom line: they all got worked into the bed. I didn't split any of them, because this way I got a bit more instant gratification. I did lift a couple of the epimediums and split them to spread around a bit (they've had a very difficult year with a lot of rabbit damage) and hopefully they will recover and fill in a little more next year. My three Rainforest Sunrise will probably get divided sometime... maybe soon, or maybe in the spring. I think Blue Hawaii is going to need a little more room, sooner rather than later. I've been impressed with it's growth already this season (I think you had suggested that one to me a while back), and although it has lost some of it's blue, it still has a beautiful dark color. So... Thanks Ken! I'm pretty happy with this layout. And I'll get around to mulching and edging one of these days. FYI - that bed also has some lady's mantle "Goldstrike", the epimediums, a few liriope, and some leptinella (New Zealand Brass Buttons) - a funny little plant.

Wood comes from trees. Different parts of the trees. Entirely different trees. Different forests for different trees. Different states for different trees. And wood behaves like wood. You can have all the uniformity you want if you choose plastic. Maybe laminate would have been a better choice for you, rather than real wood. Thst looks like real wood, and has behaved like real wood. And it’s great looking. You just need rugs and furniture.