Update that marigolds and nasturtiums without flowers did not repel the svb,neither did my homemade concoction of tobacco, redpeppers, black pepper, vegetable oil, and dish soap. It rained a few hours after I applied it, today new eggs all over them. I'm giving up organic at least with the svb, trying stuff with methoxychor, or best I've heard yet is this: "A second planting of summer squash made in early July will mature after adult borers have finished laying eggs. " Another nice suggestion: "Mulches are known to harbor squash bugs" http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/squash_pest.html "Iowa State University Organics Research Program conducted trials of various control methods for squash bug and squash vine borer. Researchers found that mulching with newspaper and hay, combined with tightly secured row covers on the plots (a level 2 control), provided very effective control of both weeds and squash bugs in pumpkin (C. pepo)Âespecially in the wet season of 2002.(4, 5) The row covers apparently excluded squash bugs, preventing them from entering to lay eggs. Gauze row covers (e.g., ReemayÂ, AgriforceÂ, AgribonÂ, TufbellÂ) [Section 205.206(b)(1),(2),(3)] physically exclude pests and prevent them from reaching the plants in large numbers. Preventive strategies have become more important with recognition of A. tristis as a probable disease vector. Hand picking and trapping of A. tristis, or slitting each vine to remove the larva, in the case of M. satyriniformis, represent attempts to control pests after they have begun rearing another generation in numbers sufficient to cause economic damage and pest buildup. Such labor-intensive controls may be uneconomical for large plantings." "Some products acceptable in organic vegetable production that are effective against squash bugs include diatomaceous earth, sabodilla, and neem oil. Growers that anticipate using materials to control heavy pest infestations must list these materials and the circumstances for their use in their organic systems plan. This plan must be submitted to and approved by the organic certifier before the producer uses any material." What is a sabodilla? I found a tree by that name, is it the same thing? Here is a link that might be useful: svb info

The sub-pic with the most circled are of feeder roots an Atlantic Giant pumpkin puts out at each node if buried or touching the soil... the vine was repositioned and the roots got exposed/uncovered... the pic's a little blurry but it goes to show they even laid eggs on the roots! The top sectional pic, three circled, is a vein/rib on the underside of a leaf. Your question about just sacrificing the leaf: The leaf stem is hollow, they get inside and head downward to the base of the stalk and will try boring into the vine. Don't believe what you hear about they aim for the first 3 feet of the vine! On an AG pumpkin, I've even found eggs on the yet-to-unfurl ends of vines at 20+ feet from the stump. The new growth with all the "to-be" vines at the end is "tender vittles" to them--softer & easier to bore into. And the leaf underside vein/rib [on that AG pumpkin] was about 24-30" above the ground. The right sectional pic with 1 egg on the stalk was up about 5-6 inches from the ground. There are maybe 2 possible ways to use the floating row cover successfully. 1. Use a plastic or heavy fabric weed barrier over the ground with the hole for the plant relatively small and in a different area than previous years PLUS use a floating row cover or screen over the plant, completely sealed along the edges, and hand pollinate when flowers are seen and immediately recover/reseal. The weed barrier would prevent them from emerging from the soil under the row cover, and if the stump hole or slit in the weed barrier is small and in a different location they may never find the opening--kinda like a person falling thru the ice in a lake and getting disoriented where the hole is if a current moves you further away. 2. Maybe silly or too much work would be to use row cover cut into long strips (like a roll of it 3-5" wide) and wrap it around the vine as it grows, kinda like you'd wrap electrical tape around a wire or wiring harness, always overlapping. You can do this on leaf stalks too, but it all seems like too much work, plus may constrict the plant's growth as the vine thickens. In theory, doesn't sound bad, but in reality, nearly impossible to do. Others say use tin foil and just form it around the vine. I don't think any kind of direct contact cloth or foil is really practical--they may just move to a different part of the plant not covered completely. AG growers often cover the vines with soil about an inch or more deep... it provides extra rooting areas too..but you still have to worry about exposed stalks & leaves, plus you must insure you're not burying a part of the vine that already has eggs deposited. Mark

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!)

Hazel, I grow as much of our food as I can, and that means spending tons of time preserving the harvest (via canning, dehydrating, blanching/freezing and root cellar type storage) so we'll have home-grown produce year-round. I buy a mixture of organic/non-organic food from the grocery store. I'd love to buy only organic food but we have a budget to live within and it does not allow for only organic food. I do not know if non-organic foods are less healthy and will leave that debate to the food scientists. What I do know is that I'd rather eat food that was grown in the most natural way possible. For me, eating as much naturally-grown food as possible is a personal choice. I am a 16-year cancer survivor and as soon as I was diagnosed with cancer, I began eating only an organic vegan diet. The vegan part was really hard for me because I grew up in Texas and love meat, especially beef. My family wasn't crazy about a vegan diet, but put up with it (at least when they ate at home) for me. After about 6 months, I began adding meat and dairy back to our diet. We still eat healthier that we used to but not as healthy as we did during those six months. When the National Organic Standards Board was developing the standards to be used by certified organic growers, there was much debate and compromise. Some organic food advocates felt the standards were watered down and weren't completely happy with the standards as written and implemented. Some organic advocates were disappointed and felt the organic standards were too lax and were quite vocal about that. I watched the debate with interest. For me, though, I'd rather eat organically-grown food even if the standards under which it is grown are somewhat less than perfect. One reason I grow as much of our produce as I can is because that is the only way I know exactly what was or wasn't sprayed on it. If the choice is between a strawberry grown in our garden with no chemicals sprayed on it versus a conventionally-raised strawberry that may have been sprayed with various synthetic products from 1 to 3 times a week, guess which one I'd rather be eating? Just because a pesticide, herbicide or fungicide is organic in origin does not necessarily mean it is safer than a pesticide, herbicide or fungicide that is synthetic in origin. There are some organic products I've never used and never will use. I'm planting my 18th spring garden right now (my first was planted a year before we broke ground for the house), and I have used a synthetic pesticide once (last year, to save the garden from huge hordes of grasshoppers) and it almost killed me. I won't say I'll never use a synthetic pesticide again but I hope it will be another 18 years before I feel like that is the only option left to save my garden. I even use organic pesticides sparingly and, in fact, most years I don't use them at all. I use them very selectively and only for the worst of pests. Sometimes I'll spray neem oil, for example, on one specific plant that has a pest issue but won't spray the whole garden or even that whole row. I'd rather hand-pick and use other methods to remove the pests. I never spray Spinosad because it is a broad-spectrum pesticide that can harm some beneficial insects, but I'll use it in a granular product (Slug-Go Plus) that I sprinkle on the ground to kill pill bugs and sow bugs. I also use a granular organic fire any product that contains Spinosad. Other than neem and Spinosad, I sometimes use a product containing Bt 'kurstaki' on brassicas and that's about it. I mostly rely on our population of beneficial insects to help keep the pest levels low, and on hand-picking bugs or using floating row covers to exclude them from crops. I think that produce grown in the most natural way possible tastes better, and we all know that produce fresh from the garden is the best-tasting, healthiest food around. I like being able to harvest in the morning and then use some or all of that harvest in the meals we eat that day. And, on the list of what really matters, the use of synthetic pesticides bothers me the most. I have less of an issue with synthetic fungicides or fertilizers. I think every gardener has the right to grow their plants, whether ornamental or edible, in whatever manner they choose. I just choose to grow mine as naturally as I can. When I first transitioned from conventional gardening to organic gardening in the 1990s, I essentially kept gardening exactly as I always had with the only change being that I was substituting products that were organic in origin for those that were synthetic in origin. After moving here, I began to take steps to go beyond that and that was the beginning of my progression to go sort of beyond merely growing organicallyand focus more on gardening in the most natural and sustainable way. Whether you will be pleased with the winter squash/pumpkins you chose as fall decorations depends on whether you think all autumn pumpkin displays must include big orange pumpkins. I love all the C. moschatas for fall decorations because I like their various shades from buff-colored Seminole to the almost brownish-buff color of Musquee de Provence. For 7 or 8 years before the squash vine borers found us here, I always grew huge numbers of winter squash and pumpkins in all colors---including orange, yellow, white, buff, green and some that were speckled, splotched, striped or warted. It was fun while it lasted and they made great autumn displays, but the SVBs have made it impossible for me to have that wide variety of colors now, so I am content with the colors of the C. moschata group, which mostly are in a range of buff-colored shades. Having become used to what I have now in terms of sizes and colors, I am content with pumpkins that aren't traditional jack-o-lantern types. And, sometimes I want a big orange pumpkin in the fall and plop it down in the middle of the display with my home-grown ones. Dawn