I hope you all had a great 4th of July holiday! We harvested our first watermelon of the season this weekend. It was very sweet, but still needed a few days on the vine.
About 70% of our spaghetti vines succumbed to the ravages of the squash vine borer (SVB) despite our best efforts at cutting the buggers out of the vines. We harvested 4 squash from the dying vines, but they may or may not turn out to be mature enough to eat. It appears that the remaining vines are going to pull through. The adult SVB moths are nearing the end of their mating cycle (i.e. egg laying). Our plan B is to replant the destroyed vines now with the idea that they should escape the SVB and still have enough time to produce for us before our first killing frost arrives in mid-October. That's the plan; we will keep you posted.
Things to be on the lookout for:
We are still finding and smashing squash bug eggs and nymphs here and there. Check your squash leaves for eggs once a week.
We found an adult Mexican bean beetle and several of its nymphs on watermelon vines, squash plants, and sweet potato leaves. We didn't get a picture of the adult because it was mistaken for a lady beetle, which is a very beneficial insect for the garden. The Mexican bean beetles are in fact in the same family as the lady beetle. They are larger than a typical lady beetle, orangish brown, with black spots. Images of the adults can be seen here. The nymph (pictured above) is small at only a half inch long, yellow with black spikes protruding from the body. They defoliate garden plants relatively quickly, so visiting your garden daily is imperative. Hand picking nymphs has kept us from experiencing damage from them this year. If you get a heavy infestation, neem oil
is effective against them.Weather outlook:
-Low to upper 80's
-Chance of rain every day
-Ten day forecast
What's being harvested:
-Watermelons
-Chard and kale
-Spaghetti squash (much too early)
-Onions
-Hearing reports of red tomato harvests (ours are STILL green)
-Green tomatoes
-Cucumbers (MANY cucumbers!)
-Kohlrabi (almost all gone)
-Squash and zucchini
-Squash blossoms
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs
-Radishes
What's coming soon:
-Red tomatoes
-Peppers
Posts
Well my pumpkin vines got similar treatment as your squash vines. Vine borers--a lot!.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm finding the little golden football eggs of the squash bugs. I've heard of a few SVB remedies--wood ash, BT, aluminum foil, row covers.
Jason
We hear you brother. We've read everything we could find too and there doesn't seem to be one perfect solution.
ReplyDeleteNext year, we are going to do weekly injections of Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) into the hollow cavity of the vine at each junction (where they like to penetrate). We will also treat the surface of the vine with BT weekly.
We're hoping this late planting comes on quick enough to fruit. The adult squash vine borers have quit flying. We have one remaining, gnarled up vine and it's not being attacked any more. It's almost 15 feet long and fruiting!
We did find that the fruits do not have to reach full, deep yellow maturity to be fully edible. They likely won't store through the winter as well, but for eating within 2-3 weeks, they were great! So if you have a vine that's dieing with fruit on it, take them into the house and give them a shot.
That's good info. My biggest vine died at the end with a good sized pumpkin already on. As it died, the pumpkin turned orange. I'm waiting for it to harden and then I'll make pie!
ReplyDeleteJason