Friday, July 11, 2008

Bye Bye Squash

I have to admit, I've reached the point where I look at all my unread bloglines and think to myself, don't you people have something better to do?? All this posting?? Every day??? I guess that means I either need to Mark All Read or unsubscribe to a few.

This week has been a bad gardening week. My squash was looking great.


Pretty blossoms, and some fruit. I finally had a few honeybees visiting. They had been a little scarce until recently and I was getting worried about the reported die off.

Back to the squash. I came outside and saw the zucchini lying over.

Then I examined the stems.

The stems on the squash were looking a little strange, but the zucchini,

Ewww. You can't see the actual pest, the squash vine borer, in the photo.  That's a rolypoly.  The actual pest looks like a giant maggot. I read some advice that said to slit the stems with a knife and take them out, but I couldn't do it without destroying the plants, they were too far gone.

I ripped them out and planted more seeds. I'm going to try and keep a better watch next time. The prevention advice seems to go the spectrum from spray! (which I want to avoid) to wrap the stems with foil and use diotomaceous earth, etc.

I'm going out of town again next week to stay with my folks. I love to visit their town and play tourist with the kids. It's the same place where I went to high school and college but it's changed a lot since I lived there 20 years ago. I've got a cute crochet project going and I hope to finish it while away next week.


Have a good week.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Amanda Cathleen said...

I hear you, my bloglines is outta control! But it usually is in the summer.
awwww, poor squash! I love squash even though I seem to be the only one in my family (other than my parents) who enjoy it. My kids, and my husband won't touch it at all. Ever make fried zucchini? mmmm!

2:20 PM  

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