Hi Charlene, White spots in the flesh of different vegetables can mean various things so you have to analyze your soil, moisture levels, fertility levels (or lack of such), and pest problems to get to the bottom of it. First of all, if you saw the white spots inside any of your harvested vegetables in June to mid-July before the squash bugs and stink bugs arrived, then those instances probably were not insect-related. (And, even at that, I saw stink bugs arriving in my zone 7 garden in southern OK in MAY which is highly unusual, but May was very hot and dry here in Love County, so it happened. Still, I didn't see damage on the produce itself until late July.) Secondly, if the white flesh is entirely and completely internal with no signs of it on the outer skin of the veggies, then it probably is related either to excess moisture in the soil or excess fertility (caused by too much fertilizer because none of us has soil that is rich enough to cause 'excess fertility' by itself). When it is excess fertility, the element that is the problem is usually excess nitrogen. In watermelons and other melons, this white flesh even has a name..."white heart" and it has ruined many melons and is easily avoidable...just don't overfeed with nitrogen. Third, if you DO see little round circles on the skin of the fruit that are a slightly different color (usually a slightly lighter color) from the rest of the skin, then it might be damage from stink bugs or leaf-footed bugs or blister beetles(most common source of such damage). I've never had squash bugs do visable damage to my squash, but only to the plants themselves. If you have stink bug/leaf-footed bug/blister beetle damage, you often will notice an off-flavor to the ligher-fleshed area of the veggie but not an off-flavor to the rest of the veggie. However, if the damage to the veggie or fruit is widespread, it could affect the taste of the entire fruit or veggie and none of it would be salvageable. If the cause is excess fertility, you may notice that your plants were thick and green and lush and gorgeous, and produced heavily, but the inner portions of the veggies were white or whitish and had a pronounced lack of flavor. About the only remedy I know for that is to stop fertilizing the plants and instead build the soil with compost, humus, manure and other organic materials and let the soil feed the plants. You'll taste and see the difference. Sometimes, you may have an undiagnosed nutritional deficiency in your soil that leads to such white spots. Generally, it is not caused by too little nitrogen, potassium or phosphorus, but instead by a lack of one of the necessary micro-nutrients, also known as trace elements. These are: iron, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, manganese, chlorine, boron, zinc, copper and molybdenum. And, those micronutrients are only the most common ones....there are over 70 others that have not been studied as well yet for us to know what it does to our soil/plants if those micronutrients are low. A soil test can tell you if you have a micronutrient deficiency, but you'll have to request that the test check the levels of micronutrients because a lot of the common soil tests these days mainly test for N-P-K. Fourth, if the white spots were caused by excess moisture, there's not much you can do about that if all the moisture was falling from the skies and not from your waterhose. If you live in one of the parts of Oklahoma that has had very high rainfall this year, the excess moisture basically clogs up the roots and prevents them from absorbing nutrition from the soil. You can't do much but hope for drier weather next year. If you have been irrigating a lot, cut back next year and see if the white-flesh issues go away. Too much water and too much fertilizer both are often the major causes of many veggie problems....it is a phenomenon often referred to as "loving your plants to death". For what it is worth, the best way to make sure that your soil is not deficient in any of the micronutrients is to add all the chopped/shredded leaves you can to your veggie garden beds in the fall. The chopped/shredded leaves have all the needed micronutrients in the right proportions and give your soil exactly what it needs to grow healthy and productive veggies. Hope this info helps, and we can discuss it further if you have questions about specific veggies, for example. Dawn

Thanks for the additional pix. Is the rootball hard to the touch? If so, that means it's potted in mostly peat which when totally dry, actually repels water & prevents the roots from getting any water. I don't grow this plant, but recognize possible rootball problems. If it's as I suspect, someone else will have to guide you to changing the mix. I'd be likely to just crumble the mix off w/ my fingers. Am guessing once you change the soil to whatever mix is good for them which others here may suggest (after washing & drying out the same pot) you may be able to keep the same pot.

Watering it only 2x in six mo is definitely not enough. Soil should be changed completely - it looks like peat, it is pulling away from the sides of pot. When you take it out of pot, it may loose all existing leaves. These plants loose leaves very easily under good conditions, so don't be surprised. Only way to find out is to try. All healthy leaves most likely will grow into new plants, just toss them on surface of new potting mix. It should be well draining and without peat. Try 50:50 mix of coarse perlite and Cactus & Succulent soil. Get all old soil off the roots if possible. If you loose all the roots but stems are OK otherwise, they can be rooted again. It is also very etiolated = not getting enough light. Plant should stay in a window space where it will get some more light.

For reference: Ideal Particle Sizes In a perfect world, the mineral fraction for use in the gritty mix would range in size from 1/10 - 5/32" (.100 - .156", or 2.5 - 4.0mm). The bark fraction would be slightly larger to allow for some breakdown over the life of the planting ........ from 1/8 - 1/4 is about ideal (.125 - .250" or 3.25 - 6.25mm). For the 5:1:1 mix, bark particle size should be from dust to 3/8". (0 - .375", or 0 - 4mm), with most of the bark ranging in size from 3/16 - 3/8" ( .188 - .375", or 4.8 - 9.5mm). The perlite should be on the coarse side - something like the all purpose or super coarse shown below. How Gran-I-Grit is graded: starter: 1/16 - 3/32 inch (1.6 - 2.4mm) you can sub #1 cherrystone/quartzite if available grower: 3/32 - 3/16 inch (2.4 - 4.8mm) you can sub #2 cherrystone/quartzite if available developer: 3/16 - 5/16 (4.8 - 8.0mm) you can sub #3 cherrystone/quartzite if available turkey: 5/16 - 7/16 inch (8.0 - 11.0mm) turkey finisher: 7/16 - 5/8 inch (11.0 - 16mm) Is the Coco coir can do as a replacement .? or anything else that I can try? I've done some testing of coconut products as replacements for peat and pine bark, coir and CHCs respectively, and was entirely underwhelmed by the results. I wrote about it: Peat vs. Coir Sphagnum peat and coir have nearly identical water retention curves. They both retain about 90-95% of their volume in water at saturation and release it over approximately the same curve until they both lock water up so tightly it's unavailable for plant uptake at about 30-33% saturation. Coir actually has less loft than sphagnum peat, and therefore, less aeration. Because of this propensity, coir should be used in mixes at lower %s than peat. Because of the tendency to compact, in the greenhouse industry, coir is primarily used in containers in sub-irrigation (bottom-watering) situations. Many sources produce coir that is high in soluble salts, so this can also be an issue. Using coir as the primary component of container media virtually eliminates lime or dolomitic lime as a possible Ca source because of coir's high pH (6+). Gypsum should be used as a Ca source, which eliminates coir's low S content. All coir products are very high in K, very low in Ca, and have a potentially high Mn content, which can interfere with the uptake of Fe. Several studies have also shown that the significant presence of phenolic allelochemicals in fresh coir can be very problematic for a high % of plants, causing poor growth and reduced yields. I haven't tested coir thoroughly, but I have done some testing of CHCs (coconut husk chips) with some loose controls in place. After very thoroughly leaching and rinsing the chips, I made a 5:1:1 soil of pine bark:peat:perlite (which I know to be very productive) and a 5:1:1 mix of CHCs:peat:perlite. I planted 6 cuttings of snapdragon and 6 cuttings of Coleus (each from the same plant to help reduce genetic influences) in containers (same size/shape) of the different soils. I added dolomitic lime to the bark soil and gypsum to the CHC soil. After the cuttings struck, I eliminated all but the three strongest in each of the 4 containers. I watered each container with a weak solution of MG 12-4-8 with STEM added at each watering, and watered on an 'as needed basis', not on a schedule. The only difference in the fertilizer regimen was the fact that I included a small amount of MgSO4 (Epsom salts) to provide MG (the dolomitic lime in the bark soil contained the MG, while the gypsum (CaSO4) in the CHC soil did not. This difference was necessary because or the high pH of CHCs and coir.) for the CHC soil. The results were startling. In both cases, the cuttings grown in the CHC's exhibited < 1/2 the biomass at summers end as the plants in the bark mix. I just find it very difficult for a solid case to be made (besides "It works for me") for the use of coir or CHC's. They're more expensive and more difficult to use effectively. The fact that some believe peat is in short supply (no where near true, btw) is easily offset by the effect of the carbon footprint of coir in its trek to the US from Sri Lanka or other exotic locales. That's the view from here. YMMV Coir Study: https://sites.google.com/site/plantandsoildigest/usu-crop-physiology-laboratory/coconut-coir-studies If your bark has a large fraction of fines, you might be able to do without the peat fraction; or, you might be able to screen off some of the coarsest bark particles and use that combined with Seramis for a succulent or tree soil. I would do without the peat before I'd use coir as a replacement if at all possible. If you do use coir, try to limit it to less than 10% of the mix o/a. Would you mind sharing with me, what's the use of garden lime? It's available in huge packets. Not sure if I need that much as my scope of use is just a couple of pots Bark and peat are rather acidic. Lime added to the substrate helps to neutralize the acidity and raise pH to a more favorable level - say around 5.0 - 5.5. Also, it's not unusual for fertilizers to be formulated without Ca or Mg, macro-nutrients essential to normal growth. Garden lime serves as a long-term source of these elements when substrates are limed with dolomitic lime. No matter how you proceed, you'll need to be sure your plants are getting all the essentials and pH levels arent something the plant can't deal with. One of the issues with using significant volumes of coir in substrates is the face coir's high pH precludes use of dolomite as a source of Ca/Mg. Al