Pat Kiewicz wrote:

I finally gave up on being virtuous and a started spraying my peppers with
malathion (to combat pepper maggots). I also hit the bases of my squash
plants with it, too. Not so much sign of squash borers.

Thanks for your reply Pat. Spraying the base of zucchini is probably an
efficient use of pesticides. Knowing the life cycle of borers,I really
only had to do it three times, once because of heavy rain. And it is a
minimal amount.


But all my cucumbers (4) and all the winter quash (3) show signs of
bacterial wilt. Soon zucchini, melons and watermelons may follow. I
sprayed them irregularly, for fear of killing pollinators. Indeed some
of the melons have only one fruit, and the zucchini and string beans
have gone through a dry period, so I may have done something bad.

The recent stretches of hot, humid weather (with the very warm nights)
didn't help...

By this you mean the pollination stops under these conditions. But the
lull was before the 90+ weather. It must have been me. I will spray at
dusk from now on.


Downy mildew is the big worry for cucurbits in Michigan this summer:
http://www.ipm.msu.edu/cat06veg/v07-26-06.htm#1

(It was even mentioned in the Detroit Free Press.)

I have not seen it. My summer garden is sandy, dry, and windswept.
Manured, mulched, and dripped it produces, but not a good place for any
type mildew.


Winter squash usually tolerates bacterial wilt pretty well. It's cucumbers
and melons that inevitably die from it.

Interestingly, the cukes are keeling over but the melons (first year of
growing) are unaffected. One early variety, Passport, will clearly be
able to finish a few melons even if it starts wilting tomorrow. I
wonder if it takes a while for the beetles to find a new vegetable.


I gave up on growing melons and only grow cukes that don't require
pollination in a large screened-in box. I just was not willing to spray
as often with as potent an insecticide as would be required. Probably
the safest thing (bee-wise) would be a synthetic pyrethrin sprayed in
the late evening or *at night* but you pretty much have to hit the beetles
with it directly. Even one beetle feeding on a plant can infect it with wilt.

I used to use a product called Adios which is carbaryl encapsulated
with cucurbitacin, which acts as a bait. The beetles would feed on the
grains of Adios and die. I don't know what happened to this product
but since I haven't able to get it any more, I wasn't able to keep the
beetles from spreading bacterial wilt and so gave up growing melons.


So even for you they can't be beat without a major effort. I will
google it and see what transpires.