The dreaded squash borer doesn’t should squash your summer time cucurbits! Overcome this fearsome foe with one in all these examined methods.
Picture by Nick Collins from Pixabay
Easy methods to Outsmart the Squash Borer
Do you develop summer time squash? Do your vegetation go loopy and produce a lot squash that you simply run out of associates and neighbors prepared to take any extra extra squash off your palms? If that’s the case, you do not want to fret your fairly little head over this painful story.
In actual fact, cease studying now, lest you’ve horrible nightmares. Dig up your recipe for Zucchini Shock, and go in peace.
The remainder of us, nonetheless, should face off with the infamous squash borer (a.ok.a. squash vine borer and zucchini vine borer). This nemesis drives the light yard gardener to turn out to be a warring desperado each spring within the battlefields of the Borer Wars. We should attain deep to find simply how a lot abuse we’re prepared to soak up the identify of these delicate, hard-won trophies—summer time squash.
A Story of (Gardening in) Two Cities
Picture by Ralphs_Fotos from Pixabay
Okay, sit again and revel in a basic story.
One high quality spring day, Dorothy, the woefully harmless yard gardener, saunters out to her completely ready raised mattress and vegetation just a few zucchini and crookneck squash. That is her first new backyard since she moved south, and he or she is wanting ahead to the lengthy rising season. She vegetation only a few as a result of she doesn’t need to be overrun!
Again in Kansas, she grew extra squash than she may eat each summer time. What little Dorothy doesn’t know is that she isn’t in Kansas anymore. She’s headed for a excessive midday, Texas-style showdown with the squash borer, Melittia cucurbitae.
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We’ll let her benefit from the lovely spring climate as she watches her wholesome vegetation get huge and husky and extra splendid on daily basis.
After a number of weeks, the primary male blooms come on. Dorothy is preparing for an enormous harvest, and he or she even digs out her favourite outdated recipes in order that she’ll have one thing to do with all this squash. Proper after an amazing rain, she sees the bees transferring round from one huge, fats feminine bloom to the following.
Holy cow! Our pal is imagining huge bowls of steaming squash throughout the week. Then on Saturday, with goals of crookneck dancing in her head, she grabs her trug and heads out into the sunshine.
A Impolite Awakening
However wait, what does Dorothy discover? Her composted, fertilized, well-watered, weed-free beds look empty. Her beautiful squash vegetation have completely collapsed and lay dying on the liberally mulched soil.
That is ridiculous! It merely can’t be! Then she remembers the outdated hippies down at her native backyard heart who supplied to assist her out if she bumped into bother. On the time, she thought she wouldn’t want their assist, however now she isn’t so certain.
Might the loss of life of her squash vegetation have been brought on by some bizarre soil fungus? Or all these loopy tablet bugs crawling all around the backyard mattress? Oh no! Might or not it’s these damned fireplace ants that sting the @#$%&*! out of her on a regular basis?
She will be able to’t make sure why this occurred, and he or she wants a bag of potting soil anyway. So she grabs her canine Toto and heads out for the backyard heart to get some solutions.
Veterans of the Squash Borer Wars
As Dorothy pours out her tragic story, the smiling girl behind the counter nods knowingly. Sure, certainly, these are the indicators of the dreaded squash borer. It’s a widely known pest down right here within the South, and it’s changing into an increasing number of frequent all throughout the nation.
Dorothy doesn’t hand over simply, so she asks for some concepts about what she will do to deal with the issue.
A Squash Borer Cowl-Up
She learns that many gardeners cowl their squash with light-weight row cowl. The protecting prevents the feminine borer moth from laying eggs on the stems of the vegetation.
She’s instructed that when the primary feminine blooms seem, she ought to open the row cowl, decide a male bloom, and use it to softly pollinate the feminine flowers. She ought to rigorously shut the row cowl and are available again the following day to repeat the method. New squash blossoms present up on daily basis, so this course of have to be repeated till there’s a good crop of younger squash to choose.
This system ought to work if the gardener does it periodically for your complete rising season—and so long as there aren’t any borer pupa buried within the soil beneath the quilt.
“What! Wait a doggone minute.” Dorothy can’t imagine her ears. She actually doesn’t need to spend all of her spare time pollinating squash blooms by hand.
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Spray These Suckers
Picture by JD Starnia from Pixabay
“What about pesticide?” Dorothy calls for. “There must be some form of pesticide to kill these evil borers!” Dorothy’s frustration is met with but extra nodding and smiling. The cheery professional from the backyard heart produces a container from the shelf, and hope returns.
“That is Bacillis thuringiensis,” she explains. “You’ll be able to inject Bt into the hole stems of the plant to kill the larval type of borer that’s consuming the plant from the within out.” She goes on to say that Dorothy can purchase an outsized syringe for horses from the native feed retailer. She is to fill it with Bt and inject every of the stems on her vegetation.
This was not the straightforward resolution Dorothy had hoped for. “So, has this labored for you?” she asks. The joyful professional’s smile fades away and is changed by a quiet confession. “No, this didn’t work for me. I’m unsure why … perhaps I missed a stem someplace.”
Dorothy retains pushing, certain that there have to be some approach to beat these bugs.
“Effectively, some individuals exit and coat the stems with Bt on daily basis, however that’s an excessive amount of work for me,” the professional provides. “Some individuals simply go after the grubs with a knife! It offers individuals satisfaction to kill the little grub worms though you additionally should kill the stem with a purpose to discover the grub.”
Dorothy is dropping endurance. She is starting to assume {that a} go to to the Emerald Metropolis could also be her solely hope.
Don’t Retreat From the Borer Wars
Everyone knows how this story ends: Dorothy goes again to Kansas. However you don’t have to maneuver to a unique state to develop squash. I discovered a solution that basically works. It’s a compromise, however in case you battle the borer and are on the lookout for new techniques, you would possibly give this a attempt. Let me clarify.
Squash Borer Delicacy
The acquainted summer time squash is Cucurbita pepo. This species has hole stems, and the leaf stems are additionally hole. The feminine squash borer deposits her eggs on both the principle stem or on one of many leaf stems. When the eggs hatch, the larvae bore into the stem.
The hole area contained in the stems is the proper habitat for the borer larvae to eat, undisturbed by predators. You’ve in all probability seen frass (insect poop) close to the purpose the place the borer went into the stem. The purpose of entry appears like a pinhole on the floor of the stem. Because the larvae develop, sufficient of the plant will get eaten in order that the lack of tissue kills the plant.
Plant a Totally different Squash
Cucurbita moschata is a species of squash that does not have hole stems. There are quite a few wonderful cultivars within the moschata species, equivalent to Lengthy Island cheese pumpkin, Pennsylvania crookneck, butternut, and most notably, Seminole.
Named after the Native American tribe that cultivated it, Seminole is a big plant that’s wildly prolific. It units fruit so early and so typically that the immature squash may be picked for the desk all spring and all summer time.
Experiment with choosing the squash at totally different phases to search out the precise time that works greatest for you. I’ve discovered that I like them greatest when they’re concerning the dimension of a baseball. They are going to look a bit of like spherical zucchini.
Manufacturing goes down in the course of the hottest a part of the summer time, however the vines spring again to life to supply a high quality autumn crop. For those who go away a few of the fruits to ripen, you’ll harvest pretty small, orange pumpkins at first frost.
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These are the most effective keepers of any squash I’ve ever grown. I often have many good, sound pumpkins remaining when I’m planting the following season’s crop. I’ve requested different gardeners to do this out of their gardens, and so they have skilled comparable outcomes.
Victory at Final
Picture by jacqueline macou from Pixabay
If you’re nonetheless on the lookout for revenge for previous heartbreaks, simply stand again and watch confidently because the squash borer moth lays her eggs in your Seminole vines. The bottom of the plant will turn out to be riddled with holes, however not one of the larva will have the ability to take the plant down! You might lose a leaf right here and there, however the plant will stay on till frost.
Then you may be filling a wheelbarrow (after which one other) with fairly little, orange pumpkins. Even the pumpkins which are nonetheless inexperienced when picked will maintain very nicely.
Perhaps this 12 months you may be the one who runs out of neighbors and associates to simply accept the excess squash you’ve grown. If that’s the case, head on over to the native meals pantry to share your bounty.
What Do You Suppose?
Do you’ve your personal story of conquer the dreaded squash borer? If that’s the case, be sure you share all of the useful particulars with us within the feedback under!
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That is an up to date model of an article that was initially revealed on March 14, 2015. The creator might not at the moment be obtainable to answer feedback; nonetheless, we encourage our Group members to chime in to share their experiences and reply questions!
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