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Thanks Dave! I took your advice and pulled up one of my plants and I'm sure glad I did! I had 5 full size potatoes there which completely surprised me (we planted the seed potatoes only 9 weeks ago). I think I will re-plant one of the potatoes as a seed potato to hopefully get another crop in the fall.


Yes, Squash Vine Borer. Mine fell victim this year too. I have panted a second crop to see what will happen with a later season planting.
Gotta get those buggers at the egg stage, if possible. Very tiny single brown eggs usually laid on the lower part of the stem. Not to be confused with the squash bug eggs which are an orange cluster usually on the back side of the leaves. Both should be removed by hand when discovered.
The link below I an interesting read.
Here is a link that might be useful: Squash Vine Borer Control

Thanks all for the replies. I slit the plants at the base and started looking for the bugs... to my surprise it was not one or two ... there were families of them 4 or 5. Finally felt the plant would not survive the operation. So pulled all of them out. Infact all of them had SVB damage. - what a lesson learnt - I lost all my zucc plants.
I will be more careful from here and try to protect my winter squash plants now.
Thanks again.
Regards
G


Dan - Hmmm. . . and my seeds are from Johnny's, and they sell to a lot of large scale farms. I wonder?
Well, it has made for some nice visiting -- one of my neighbors today asked me if I'd gotten enough male flowers, so I think that means I can go back to him when the ones I got today are past. And it's working -- we ate the first Zephyr squash tonight, and Costata Romanesco coming tomorrow!



None of those will kill it, but they will help control it. You have to be very regular with your spraying for the remainder of the season. I prefer the milk method myself. Yes, you should remove the heavily affected leaves. I save my Neem for bugs because I'm mean that way >:)

I am also on Long Island and when the heat and humidity hit I got powdery mildew on all my squashes. Tried cutting off the leaves but that did not do it. I sprayed with Neem three times. Once, them two days later again and two days after that again. That stopped it. Make sure you do both sides of the leaves (top and bottom) and the stems also. Plus do both the new clean leaves and the ones already with the mildew. Now I just spray weekly to control/stop the mildew.


The posts I were referring to are kind of old plus they were on the Organic Gardening forum. And the discussions are about how the soap kills bugs, not about it's surfactant properties. So I don't know if the same rules apply for what type of soap to use or if it matters.
Rodney
Here is a link that might be useful: Insecticidal Soap Discussions

The Ashley cucumber is a smooth slicer. I grew them tis year along with Munchers (prickly pickling) and County Fair (prickly pickling). Cutting cuke off vine with sheers is best.
I have some round, fat, bottleneck anomalies and I suspect it is the rain and cooler than usual temperatures. This kind of behavior is usually at the end of the season but
our whole summer has been anything but a typical South Carolina summer.
Target leaf spot is ravaging my plants (so much heavy rain EVERY day for weeks) but still producing fruit and new growth, so I am happy. Still managed to get some pickles put up and make some Tzadiki.

If it is bacterial wilt from the cucumber beetle there isn't much you can do. Pull the plant and dispose in the garbage can away from your garden and/or compost.
Go to the link below and search other possibilities.
Your other plants look wonderful - mine are full of Angular Leaf Spot due to the constant heavy rains.
Your tomato looks like it might have Early Blight. Remove the leaves and spray with a fungicide is the recommended action.
Here is a link that might be useful: Cucurbit Problem Solver







The markings are the leaves dying around their veins.
I've seen the same thing often when my backup plants spend too long in their pots, unneeded. It means it's time to throw them out.
Whatever the reason for the failing plants, you have too many and they are indeed too crowded. If I were in your position, I would throw out the two bad plants, sterilize the soil (or better yet,use it somewhere else or throw it out), then use the container (be sure to wash it out with PineSol or someother disinfectant cleaner) to transplant one of the good plants.
Whatever the variety you have, you do not need 4 zucchini plants. I have two plants of an unknown bush variety planted out in the ground and I am feeding the neighborhood.
Last year I had another variety that vined more and the four plants just overtook anything in their way so I isolated the zucchini in another part of the yard this year. This years two plants are producing enough for 4 families plus a weekly drop an my mom's exercise group.