As I
thought about my opening post this weekend, I found my topic wreaking havoc in
my garden, the squash vine borer. If you are new to gardening or have
never grown anything in the gourd family you may be thinking, “What is this?” I had heard the name but
hadn’t seen what it could do to an otherwise healthy plant until Saturday night.
The first sign of trouble was yellow sawdust looking matter
around the base of my plant’s stem. I pulled on my plant and
realized that the stem had been almost sucked dry. It was a yellow color
and almost seemed woody. I called my
neighbor (a fellow urban gardener and my gardening partner in crime) and we
started dissecting the plant’s stem.
What we found surprised us.
Neither of us had ever seen this wormy looking creature (a larvae) that
was clear and whitish and had a brown head.
We pulled out our trusty garden resource (you would know this as an
iPhone) and we started researching, right there, in the dark and being eaten
alive by mosquitoes.
UGHH! We tried to save
the first plant by slicing gently into it’s stem and removing the first squash
vine borer we
found, but quickly realized this plant and all the plants were gone. There were
about 7 bugs per plant. This was very disappointing and maybe
preventable. In researching we found a few great ways to protect the other
gourd family plants (cucumbers, squash, zucchini and melons) in our garden. You can wrap empty toilet paper or paper
towel rolls around the base of your vine to the root. In
case your plant is too large cut the roll to fit properly. This
prevents the borer from being able to reach your vine. This is the route I went but I also found
recommendations of duct tape around the stem that touches the soil. I also saw that some plants may start to re-root if the
lower vine is close to the dirt and not damaged. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for us.
I hope my fix works.
If anyone has any additional suggestions or is dealing with anything in
their garden please comment back.
Chances are someone has suggestions or is having the same problem.
See ya’ in the garden!!
Between this and squash bugs (which you don't squash because they stink!), it's a wonder we have any zucchini on our two plants at all. But, at the moment I have about half a dozen in the fridge awaiting some culinary genius to happen to them. Not mine, necessarily, but someone :)
ReplyDeleteI have heard that if you take one of the 5 ounce dixie kitchen cups and cut out the bottom then place that around the base of the squash/gourd/cucumber/zucchini/watermelon/cantaloupe plant when it is planted, these pesky buggers can be avoided. The waxed side keeps other critters out too because they can't hold on.
Thanks for the post :)
Thanks for the comment Sunshine!! I will defintely try the dixie cup trick when I plant next year. I would rather do prentative things than have to combat a problem. My remaining gourds are currently wrapped with toilet paper rolls. I am headed to our organic CSA tomorrow to an open farm day so I may pick their brains on how they keep them away (since they have so many plants). We have yet to see squash bugs this year but it's still early:(
DeleteSo much you can do with zucchini! Grill, stuff and my daughter's favorite chocolate chip bread.
Thanks for the tip and enjoy those zukes!!