23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Because they're part of the environment!
And because they're always looking for a new place to go out to dinner.

Here's an up close and personal look at the enemy.

Funny story, I'd never heard of SVB. Every year my dad's squash would get "stem rot" and die back. Frustrated him to no end. The first year I started any gardening of my own, I was growing some veggies, including some crookneck yellow squash in containers, since my dad didn't have room in the garden to give me any space.

One day I was at the local nature center and saw this "cool" red and black moth feeding on rattlesnake master. I'd seen them in my yard a few times. Took a series of macro shots (attached is one of them). Went home and googled "red and black moth IL" in image search, spotted the same moth, clicked image-- and at the top of the page in bold letters was the common name:

SQUASH VINE BORER

At that moment it occured to me my squash were looking a little sickly. It didn't take long to figure that they'd been killing my dads squash every year, which he thought was the stem rot.

And thus my (still mostly losing) battle with these things began. Wiped out my crooknecks that year. I managed to keep my squash alive last year by injecting with BT and heaping dirt on the vines to get some new roots, but ultimately production went down to nearly zero on the two survivors.

Some of them can be really easy to knock off.. I just barely touched my first ever pepper and it fell off.. Not all of them will though. My guess is like mentioned above, perhaps the plant was preparing to drop it anyways.

Ok, well I can deal with that. I hope it will make more. There were no more casualties this morning. Today has been better on many fronts than I was expecting.

I agree with what was said above...I only see male flowers in your pictures. I have crookneck squash plants too and even my first pollinated female flower (I know it was pollinated because I did it myself) fail to grow into a fruit. I was disappointed but as long as that isn't the case every time, I'm assuming it's normal. When you see a female flower, you'll know!

Thanks so much. I'm starting to get the full picture now. I also saw a pic elsewhere on the web, that makes the female with the fruit on it more plain. I feel like I know now what to look for. Thank goodness for you folks on GW

The variety I grow for grist - hickory king - would be ideal. Massive strong vigorous plants.

There actually are varieties of maze corn (not to be confused with maize). Rupp seed has varieties of ornamental corn specifically bred for mazes.It was initially marketed as not producing hard ears of corn to keep pesky kids from being able to throw and or hurt people with it. This part of the description is absent from this years (2013) catalog, but the variety still exists. The name is not surprisingly "Maze Corn". Just take a look at their catalog. Catalog pages 60 and 61.

Rupp 2013 Catalog

Certainly any variety can work, but there are varieties being bred specifically for the purpose as agritourism becomes more popular.

That looks to me like a tricky proposition. The plants are very close to each other, and the pot is small for just one plant that size. I think that has to mean that the plants are root bound, and the roots are probably very tangled.

But I agree that the only option to try to keep them all is soaking, and teasing them apart. Just don't let the roots dry out. It will take a while for each to get themselves reestablished, and I suspect you'll lose half the foliage in each.

I would have half a mind, as you were thinking. to thin to two or three, transplant them together in some good deep soil, and see what you get. The plants will be healthy, but they won't grow that big, and it may be a challenge getting much fruit. If these were small peppers, you might have more luck.

Don't just soak the roots. Soak them in a bucket, but grab them by the stalks and swish around in the bucket of water. Then take an adjustable spray nozzle and wash off the majority of the soil. Then start tugging loose each individual plant. Then get them to their final growing spot and drench. If at all possible, let the soil dry out before the next watering.

I just did this myself about 2 weeks ago with 3 red bells and all are rebounding just fine.

Kevin

This post was edited by woohooman on Wed, Jun 12, 13 at 0:40

Your weed situation does not look unusual for an area that has only been tended for a year or two. Stay on top of the weeding this year and don't let any of the weeds set seed. Hoeing and mulch are great suggestions. Use the hoe when the top of the soil is dry and then most of the hoed up weeds will fry in the sun and not reroot.Try using a thick layer of leaves or straw over recently weeded areas whenever possible. It makes weed control and watering much easier for us. We'll be stockpiling raked leaves from non-gardening neighbors again this fall.

Next year should be easier for you if you keep up with weed control this year.....but weeds and their control are part of gardening. If weeds won't grow in your soil, do you really want to eat crops that will grow there?

Not sure if it can be said enough, but keep on top of hand weeding or hoeing this year and you'll see fewer and fewer weeds come up in successive years.

It's taken 3 years of weeding and a portion of my veggie garden still sprouts grass...

Sintria, GREAT photo's! I can see that (slug type) critter would be a muncher for sure. I wish I was able to identify bugs better, I will often to google image searches when I see strange guys in the garden. Problem with killing them outright without knowing what they are is, many will do some limited damage as youths, but transform into the benificial garden helpers as adults. So, I really hesitate to do anything about bugs eating SOME plants unless they are going to wipe everything out, I hate boarers though and earwigs drive me insane:( Often too, the more "bad" bugs you get, the more preditors you attract. If there's little or no food source for the preds, like wasps etc, they just won't come to the garden and take a good chomp out the few that we do get (but the few that could eat the whole garden up)
I "attempt" to work with nature when ever possible, and when it's starts to get me angry, I pull out my water gun and shoot me some bugs with soap and water, man that can feel GOOD (sort of ashamed to admit it:)
I think you folks in the warmer climates have a lot more to deal with pest wise, then those of us in the colder climates with the harsher winters. I'm in Ottawa Canada.
For the most part, I have made peace with bugs, so long as they only take a leaf or two. I had chunks taken out of my tomato's last year too and THAT I was cranky about, left with only half of each tomato for me! Now, squirrels are a different story, they are digging all over the place and not even looking to EAT the plants they distroy/dig up as they look for seeds and nuts, ARG!

I forgot about Tanglefoot. That is a good barrier. Sevin contains carbaryl, which will kill the beneficial along with the bad bugs. If you have lots of ants, look for aphids, which they farm - they protect them from predators and eat the sticky stuff the aphids produce.

The link below tells you more than you probably want to know about ants, but if you scroll down, you will see many suggestions for managing ants.

Here is a link that might be useful: ant management

I just found some cab loopers today on my broccoli I only have three plants so I just pic the little Nasty sob's off by hand and squish them with a rock very satisfying and entertaining .

Bt is one of the oldest and safest organic pesticides around. It's a bacteria that kills the larva of mosqitos, fruit flies and moths. It does no harm to anything else. And it's cheap. It's sold as Dipel in dust form or thuricide as a liquid.

Not sure about that. Gregor Mendel did his experiments on peas, and he was looking for effects that recessive genes had on the pods (that is, the fruit). I guess, simplistically, the way I look at squash fruit are squash pods for the seeds within. The fruit is, in fact, the seed.

I too am sure that you can get fruit with one plant. The question was whether you'd risk problems from recessive genes. I suspect that doesn't happen very often, because I suspect that lots of plants are fertilized from their own flowers. But if you're doing hand pollination, and have a choice, that's a useful strategy.

Mendel was growing the seeds of a cross to see the effects on the pods (the genes expressed in the next generation.)

It's always a good idea to give your plants a good look when you buy then and again when you get them home (as a form of double-checking).

Nurseries are generally open air vectors for all kinds of pests and when one is managing 100s-1000s of plants, they can't get them all...and they're not going to spray anything powerful enough that people can't access the plants for 24-48 hours.

Squash Vine Borers - nasty!