Can you tell I only learned the word “cucurbit” this past year? These are the plants that make up the gourd family, including things like zucchini, summer squash, watermelon, cucumbers, and winter squashes such as spaghetti and butternut. Here in late July, they’re also the plants that are requiring the most effort for me.
I’ve mentioned here before that we planted pumpkins, zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumbers in two different places. The one we’re calling the “pumpkin patch,” which is to the side of my driveway, and the one we were previously calling the “hill to die on,” which is the hill in my front yard. Since then, we’ve also added a couple watermelon plants.
The pumpkin patch isn’t doing so hot. We think a lot of this has to do with the soil there. It’s dense, lots of clay in it. But worse than that, the dreaded squash vine borer. We’ve been hearing about these awful bugs on the various Facebook groups we’re in, as well as the gardening podcasts we listen to (look, I never said I wasn’t a big nerd). I knew it was likely that we were going to run into them at some point, but I guess I just hoped we’d be able to outsmart them. Not the case.
These icky “moths” (demons) lay their eggs directly onto the stems of your cucurbits (pumpkins, zucchini, and yellow squash being the preferred hosts), and when they hatch, the larvae eat their way through the stem, and then burrow into the middle, where they just chow on your plant, and get bigger and bigger until they choke out the plant. Despite me keeping an eye out for them, and spraying BT spray which is an organic bacteria that is toxic to moth larvae, the rain still washes away some sprays, and the eggs are tiny. I missed some, and they got ALL. FOUR. OF. MY. BABY. PUMPKINS.
Super disappointing, but this has thus far only happened in the pumpkin patch. The “hill to die on” is now the “hill to thrive on,” and is home to our biggest plants. There’s a giant yellow squash which has produced some lovely veggies for us, a cucumber plant which has a bunch of babies growing on the vine, and a watermelon plant that is absolutely taking over, and is probably more than 15 feet long. Of course, these plants being so big and beautiful raises the stakes, and I’m terrified of the borer finding them as well. So I go out at least once a day to inspect the stems and leaves, and spray BT spray pretty often. I hope that the plants on the hill are big and strong enough that if they do get a borer, we’ll be able to do a little surgery to remove the son-of-a-gun and the plant will still be able to bounce back.
I can’t exactly tell you what the circumstances are that has allowed these particular plants to thrive. I think they get plenty of sun, and we always make sure they get plenty of water. But honestly, it just seems like luck, and now we know that the front yard is a very viable garden 🙂 So more and more, we plan to use our land for more food and less landscaping!
Mark & Beth's Homegrown Adventure 