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

timing is somewhat dependent on how the season goes .... i would say.. in my MI... we are 4 to 5 weeks ahead of schedule with many plants ...i guess i would think its the same for seasonal bug evolution ... where did you get your info.. with those precise dates?? of all the things that i wouldnt waste money spending money on ... treating Ls would be high on my list ... but then.. maybe i dont love my plants like you do.. lol ...i roll more with benign neglect after watering for the year of planting ... ken ps: olives... they line the rural byways .. and can get HUGE ... upwards of 1o to 15 to 20 feet tall and wide ... and they are taking over those easements due to birds ...

I just planted some summer squash seedlings and there are a few more I want to plant. Early in June I planted a few Blue Hubbard and Baby Blue Hubbard seedlings. I put some yellow and blue sticky traps close to the ground around these. And sprayed the Blue Hubbards with a systemic insecticide about a week ago. I caught a squash vine borer on the yellow sticky trap: Two days in a row I saw 2 more SVB adults and they were hovering over the Hubbards trying to land. I did not see any eggs on any plants. (But that maybe just me.) And I did not catch anymore on the sticky traps. The Hubbards really are very attractive to these moths. I see them inextricably drawn to the Hubbards. I dont think they are in my garden because of the hubbards. I think they would have passed by and got to my other squash. Once here, they find the hubbards irresistible. So far so good. I dont have any damage yet. Its a lot of vigilance I put up though. And I am removing any flower buds that appear from the trap crops because they have been sprayed with an insecticide. As an aside I want to mention that the sticky traps have been like magic for me. First I was getting leaf miners on my chard that were just decimating every leaf. I put up these at each end of the rows and the leaf miners have gone down by 90%. They are also catching mosquitoes and flies. The yellow ones catch the most insects. The blue catches fewer but different insects. These may be worth a try if you are getting riddled by noxious insects.

I think that would depend on the size of the sapling. Needs to be at least 4" diameter at breast height to start using the arborjet. Stuff like arborjet lasts for two years instead of one though. Some folks apply a systematic insecticide yearly. Depending on what kind of ash it is, it might already have some resistance. Methyl jasmonate has been studied to use to increase the trees natural resistance to EAB, but I haven't messed around with it myself.