I’m afraid I stopped too often to smell the flowers.
I enjoyed a few too many dreamy strolls, imagining those huge squashes and other amazing vegetables that I’d be enjoying in just a few months. In an effort to balance the daily stresses of life with periods of intentional peace and quiet in the garden, I missed some important clues of trouble in the squash patch.
Then came the searing heat that New Hampshire has experienced during this last week. Though I worked diligently to keep my gardens watered and mulched, many plants wilted in the heat of the day anyway.
Herein lies the problem. I naively attributed the wilting blue hubbard and pink banana squash vines to the heat.
In fact, for a few days, they seemed to perk back up with a good evening soak. Then, most vines were unable to recover, remaining permanently wilted. I wondered about squash vine borer but, not until today did I take a minute to consult a reference to confirm the diagnosis.
I reexamined the vines and clearly saw the sawdust-like debris left by the squash vine borer’s caterpillars as they tunneled into the vines.
I carefully sliced open the vines, but did not find any caterpillars inside, leaving me to believe they’ve, perhaps, already exited and burrowed into the soil. My reference, Rodale’s Garden Problem Solver, suggested injecting the vines with BT (Bacillus thuringiensis), but that seemed likely to be effective only if caterpillars might still be at work in the vines (or not yet at work).
What I now know, is that two early actions on my part might have prevented this problem:
- One would have been to use row cover to prevent the squash vine borer moth from laying its eggs on the vines in the first place.
- The second would have been to watch for little reddish-brown eggs on the main stem of the plant, near the base.
Just a little less dreaming, and a little more attention to the business of gardening.
I sometimes wonder about the danger of boasting and whether it can lead to failure. Is there such a thing as karma, or some sort of in-this-lifetime version of it? It’s true, I boasted that I might need a larger oven to accommodate my stuffed squashes. Maybe even a small pickup truck to deliver them to friends, who would surely be clamoring for a pink banana squash of their own. One little moth has taught me—once again—the importance of remaining humble.
Learning is a process. Hard things happen along the way.
There may be hope. I buried each of the remaining, healthy vines in soil and watered them in well, in hopes that the vines will set new roots and live on.
The good news is that other squash varieties in my garden are, I’m pretty sure, unaffected.
Balance is everything, in gardening as in other aspects of life. An evening routine of watering and dreaming to unwind from the workday is a fine idea. A morning inspection, plant by plant, might be an equally good idea.
Winter squashes are new to my garden and I realize now that it would have behooved me to do a little research in advance. I had enough general knowledge to see the recurring wilting as a warning sign; had I known to be on the alert in late June for flying moth activity and eggs on the vines, I could have averted disaster.
Or, near disaster. Time will tell.
If it’s any comfort, you’re not alone. It’s my first year of growing edibles in containers. Needless to say, I’m learning a lot. Best wishes, and happy fall gardening.
It’s safe to say I’ll do a few things differently next year! Good luck with your containers. This heat must be brutal on them.
Wondering whether boasting can bring on such humbling experiences reminded me of my own experience boasting that my dog didn’t have a certain nasty habit that my friend’s dog had ….only to have my next dog have that very same habit. Serves me right is how I see it. It’s good to be humbled now and then. Good luck with those sneaky caterpillars!
Weird how things like that work, whether or not there’s a cause and effect relationship. Humbleness seems the better path!
Gardening is a journey and every year we learn new things. I’m impressed with your investigative gardening and ability to discern the problem. I don’t have an outdoor garden this year but when it cools down, I’ll get the irrigation repaired and start at it again.
I guess I can’t call it a failure if I come out of it with more knowledge!
Hope you can save them! I was looking forward to seeing what those pink bananas looked like! The good thing about gardening–next year is a whole new page! I’ve been enjoying the observations.
I was too! As of yesterday, I had one good pink banana vine left. I’m off to Agway to pick up Captain Jack’s Deadbug spray (spinodad). I’ll be treating all squash plants, healthy and sick.
I don’t know about garden karma, it may be true… what I do know is that in any garden anything can happen at any time. Your prized tomatoes that looked so healthy can suddenly come down with blight, leaving you with hundreds of empty sauce jars. In the reverse, the green beans that did nothing for ages and ages can suddenly explode and drown you in beans… We do the best we can, learn from experience and accept that unexpected things happen even to the most experienced gardener! Don’t give up on those squashes – there’s still time :)
I think that’s all part of the adventure of gardening. If it were easy, what fun would it be? It just really feels awful when these things happen!
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Eleanor, I’m afraid that your squash vine borers are another signal of climatic warming. They shouldn’t be that far north.
I watch my squash regularly for squash bugs and vine borers. I squash what I can ruthlessly. I microwave the leaves with squash bug eggs. Last year I discovered something that may help you. When I mulched my winter squash with pine straw, the squash predators seemed confused. Only the outside vines got any impact at all. Maybe it’ll help you. Have you tried the yellow bucket with water yet? That helped too.
Good tips! Thanks. I’ll have to look into the global warming question–find out if squash vine borers are on the rise around here. I know they’re bad this year, but I don’t know what they’ve been like other years, since I haven’t grown squash in this location. In any case, constant vigilance seems to be a big part of avoiding these disasters.