In article ,
"Katey Didd" wrote:

"Omelet" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"Katey Didd" wrote:

How do you stop them from killing the vines? I tried to cover the vines
with
soil but that didn't work. I tried Sevin dust. That didn't work either.
What
are you doing that works? We are growing squash, water mellons and
cantalopes.

I personally gave up on trying. :-(
I'm considering trying them as a fall crop. Some people report good
success by spraying the bases with BT on a regular basis. Others have
tried sevin spray instead of sevin dust.

If we can't find something to work we too will give up on these crops. With
prices so high in the stores and loving these veggies I thought I'd try one
more time growing them.

If the list gives us alternatives, we'll both be happy. :-)

I just read one post that said butternut is resistant. We love that
stuff but it's a winter squash. I'd like to be able to grow both.

Tatuma really is good. They sell it in the stores here so I may give
that a try. Baby pumpkin also eats well as a green squash and I don't
recall whether we had problems with borers or not with those. It's been
too long since I've grown one.
--
Peace! Om

"Human nature seems to be to control other people
until they put their foot down." -- Stephan Rothstein

In article ,
"Katey Didd" wrote:

"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
Katey Didd wrote:
How do you stop them from killing the vines? I tried to cover the vines
with soil but that didn't work. I tried Sevin dust. That didn't work
either. What are you doing that works? We are growing squash, water
mellons and cantalopes.


There's a squash variety called "tatuma" that is resistant to squash
borers. Just be warned that the vines are aggressive and can run about 50
feet. They taste pretty good, though.

I have not seen these seeds in the stores. Is this a winter or summer
squash?


Bob

Summer, but I, too, would have to look for (or mail order) the seeds.
They sell the squash in the stores locally.
--
Peace! Om

"Human nature seems to be to control other people
until they put their foot down." -- Stephan Rothstein

Katey Didd wrote:

"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
Katey Didd wrote:
How do you stop them from killing the vines? I tried to cover the
vines with soil but that didn't work. I tried Sevin dust. That didn't
work either. What are you doing that works? We are growing squash,
water mellons and cantalopes.


There's a squash variety called "tatuma" that is resistant to squash
borers. Just be warned that the vines are aggressive and can run
about 50 feet. They taste pretty good, though.

I have not seen these seeds in the stores. Is this a winter or summer
squash?


Bob



It can go either way (but usually used as a summer squash.) BTW, the
*squash* taste pretty good, the vines taste terrible.

Bob

"Omelet" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"Katey Didd" wrote:

"Omelet" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"Katey Didd" wrote:

How do you stop them from killing the vines? I tried to cover the
vines
with
soil but that didn't work. I tried Sevin dust. That didn't work
either.
What
are you doing that works? We are growing squash, water mellons and
cantalopes.

I personally gave up on trying. :-(
I'm considering trying them as a fall crop. Some people report good
success by spraying the bases with BT on a regular basis. Others have
tried sevin spray instead of sevin dust.

If we can't find something to work we too will give up on these crops.
With
prices so high in the stores and loving these veggies I thought I'd try
one
more time growing them.

If the list gives us alternatives, we'll both be happy. :-)

I just read one post that said butternut is resistant. We love that
stuff but it's a winter squash. I'd like to be able to grow both.

Tatuma really is good. They sell it in the stores here so I may give
that a try. Baby pumpkin also eats well as a green squash and I don't
recall whether we had problems with borers or not with those. It's been
too long since I've grown one.

The only ones that were destroyed by borers were our crooknecks and
zucchinis. Two of our favorites. Butternuts were not affected. Our squash
are all coming up now. Unless watered profusely, pumpkins don't do to well
where I live.

--
Peace! Om

"Human nature seems to be to control other people
until they put their foot down." -- Stephan Rothstein

"June" wrote in message
...
When you plant your squash, plant three white icicle radish seeds near
the stem. This prevents the squash borers from doing their damage. If
you already have damage, remove the borer, and plant the cut part as
deeply as you can and water in well so it has a chance to re-root.

Regards,
June


Have you tried the radishes yourself or is that something you read
someplace?

"enigma" wrote in message
. ..
"Katey Didd" wrote in
:


wrote in message
...
Of course, crop rotation is another option.

We have two vegetable gardens several hundred feet apart.
Everything is rotated but the greens. The borers found the
squash. A neighbor suggested we cover them with screening
but the cost is too much. The soil is rich with compost and
the plants get huge.

the borers are generally only an issue with seedlings though.
sometimes tinfoil collars work, or if the borers are already
in the vine slit it & remove them. do not compost vines killed
by borers. sanitation helps a lot too.

The vine borers here get into the main stem and kill the plant, not the
seedlings. They usually start their damage when the fruits have already
started to form. I've yet to ever see the adults. I've tried to slit the
vines to remove them and the plants would die anyway. They're not easy to
find in the vines and slitting the vines seems to kill the plants even
faster. Have you tried tinfoil collars and did the work for you?

lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.

"phorbin" wrote in message
...
In article , says...

"phorbin" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
How do you stop them from killing the vines? I tried to cover the
vines
with
soil but that didn't work. I tried Sevin dust. That didn't work
either.
What
are you doing that works? We are growing squash, water mellons and
cantalopes.


Are you talking about them being already in the vines and boring?

If possible I'd like to keep them out of the vines. The seedlings just
came
up the other day.

Ah, OK.

You could be somewhere, where your squash is already in the ground and
well along. The newsgroup is worldwide and your posts appear to be
coming through datemas.de which makes it look like you're in Germany.

I only know our area, and of that I only know our garden well and it
changes according to the weather and climate.


If they're already in the vines, slit the vine near the point of entry,
remove the borers and then immediately cover the slit with earth. The
vine should put down roots at that point.

Oh I heard about this, but they never rooted. They'd wilt and die.
Finding
where the borer is in the vine is not so easy even when the hole is
found.

Could it be that the vines were infected?

I am in the mid south USA. The vines in past years don't appear infected
with yellows. The borers destroy the inner part, the leaves wilt and the
plant dies. Even if borer is found the plant never recovers and fades away.


I'm pretty sure my wife watered at the covered, damage point but I'd
have to ask her, and she's not here right now.

I'd wonder if encouraging rooting at different points along the length
of a vine would be helpful.

Zucchini and yellow crooknecks don't really have vines. They're more bush
shaped.

(Anyone care to comment?) We had one that
was virtually destroyed at the original root butproduced well through
the season from roots along its length.

That must be a more vinelike plant the crookneck and zucchini. These do not
root at the leaf nodes. At least they never did for us.


Google is your friend.

What I like about Google is that it throws up information for farmers as
well as gardeners... We have something between 80 and 120 books on
gardening but they don't deal with the issues in quite the same way.


I was hoping to run across someone that tried something that actually worked
for them.

"Pat Kiewicz" wrote in message
...
Katey Didd said:


How do you stop them from killing the vines? I tried to cover the vines
with
soil but that didn't work. I tried Sevin dust. That didn't work either.
What
are you doing that works? We are growing squash, water mellons and
cantalopes.

You aren't going to like this:

I inspect thouroughly inspect the plants every 24-36 hours and remove
any eggs I find. This is quick and easy when they are small but gets
harder once they sprawl. I also kill any moths I can. The moth is
a red and black moth that is a darn good wasp imitator. (Too bad
for the moth that there are no similarly colored wasps for the educated
gardener to confuse it with, at least in my part of the country.) The
moth flies and lays eggs during the day. I've notice that they often rest
on bean plants (if there are any nearby).

Sometimes I miss an egg, but usually find the borer quickly enough
to scrap it out or kill it with a fine wire. The moths initially stick
to
the very base of the vine, but as they spread they also begin to attack
anywhere the plant touches the ground, including leaf petioles as well
as the running stems.

As mentioned in another post. I have never seen the moth in the veggie
gardens, or the eggs on the Zucchini or Crookneck plants. These plants don't
really have runners. They're more bush-like and dense than say a Butternut
squash.

Also, the extension service publications always say something like
"eggs laid singly" but I invariably find more than one and sometimes
large numbers on one plant early in the season when the vines are
small. When you fine one egg, look around some more nearby.

Are the eggs right above the ground on the main stalk?


Another tip: sometimes the eggs are laid slightly *below* ground level.
(This is one reason why, if you use a pesticide, it should be in a liquid
form rather than dust: you need to have it run down the stem to
reach below the soil surface.)

That's good to know. G


Eventually the first generation of moths will taper off, and the vines
will
have run around a lot and will have rooted at enough points to get by
even if they have a few borers.

What kind of squash vines are you talking about?


Bush squash are a tougher problem, being hard to inspect. I've toyed
with the idea of growing them up a short, heavy stake but haven't
ever actually done that. Usually by the time they fall to borers, I've
had my fill of zuchinnis (the only bush-types I grow).

Lucky you! By the time we harvest only a few, the borers get them. Slitting
the stalk never helps. Once they start to wilt they are goners.


I always rip out an discard the squash vines when they die. And
during any cultivation, I always pick out and destroy any moth pupae
I find.

It really helps to plant resistant varieties: butternuts, cushaws, and
any cross-species hybrids with a butternut, like the Japanese-bred
"Tetsukabuto" which is an excellent squash with the texture of a
buttercup and the the borer tolerence of a butternut.

Buttercup and Hubbard squashes -- Cucurbita maxima varieties --
are the most susceptible/attractive to borers, with C. pepo types
(Jack o'lantern and field pumpkins, acorn, delicata and summer
squashes) not far behind.

Those are winter squash. Our butternuts do fine. It's our summer squash with
the borer problems.


PDF with some good pics of the moths:
http://www.utextension.utk.edu/publi...es/SP503-A.pdf

Thanks.


--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

After enlightenment, the laundry.

"Dee" wrote in message
om...
"Katey Didd" wrote in
:

How do you stop them from killing the vines? I tried to cover the
vines with soil but that didn't work. I tried Sevin dust. That
didn't work either. What are you doing that works? We are growing
squash, water mellons and cantalopes.

My neighbor dusts with BT and also injects the vines with a BT
solution, and the vines take over his backyard and produce like crazy.

Another option is rubbing Vicks VapoRub on the stems, which
supposedly will deter vine borers. Maybe the VapoRub plus wrapping the
stems with foil would increase the effectiveness. I have not tried
this tip but it seems like it might be worth a shot.

It's certainly affordable and worth a try. Thanks.


Dee

Katey Didd said:



"Pat Kiewicz" wrote in message
...

Are the eggs right above the ground on the main stalk?

Anywhere along the main stem where it makes contact with the ground.
You need to lift the plant up and move it around a bit to do a thorough
inspection. And you need to start looking for eggs long before you
would expect to see the plants drooping or lots of frass oozing out
of the stems.

I've noticed that the moths quite often lay their eggs on the leaf stems
of zucchinis as well as on the main stem.


Another tip: sometimes the eggs are laid slightly *below* ground level.
(This is one reason why, if you use a pesticide, it should be in a liquid
form rather than dust: you need to have it run down the stem to
reach below the soil surface.)

That's good to know. G


Eventually the first generation of moths will taper off, and the vines
will
have run around a lot and will have rooted at enough points to get by
even if they have a few borers.

What kind of squash vines are you talking about?

These would be winter squashes. Many of these could be harvested small
and green as summer squashes, though. Mini-pumpkins and delicata
squashes are C. pepo squashes, just like zucchini and crooknecks.
Zucchetta rampicante tromboncino is a running squash that is usually
grown as a summer squash. I've grown these before. Very productive,
huge fruit--way too much summer squash for me!

There are also edible gourds that are runners that can be used like
summer squash. Snake gourds (Trichosanthes anguina) and luffas
(Luffa cylindrica) can be eaten when small. Johnny's Selected Seeds
(http://www.johnnyseeds.com) carries some edible gourd varieties.
I'm trying out a luffa ('Rama') this summer myself. I'm trellising it
in space that might otherwise have gone to another hill of zucchini.


Bush squash are a tougher problem, being hard to inspect. I've toyed
with the idea of growing them up a short, heavy stake but haven't
ever actually done that. Usually by the time they fall to borers, I've
had my fill of zuchinnis (the only bush-types I grow).

Lucky you! By the time we harvest only a few, the borers get them.
Slitting the stalk never helps.

No, it wouldn't with bush squash. You could try using a fine wire
with a hook on the end to fish them out. Or you could use a syringe
to inject BT or beneficial nematodes into the vine. I used to do that
(and it did help) before I learned to identify the eggs and and pick
those off. You need a big bore needle, which you should be able
to get at an equine supply place.


--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

After enlightenment, the laundry.

"Katey Didd" wrote in
:

The vine borers here get into the main stem and kill the
plant, not the seedlings. They usually start their damage
when the fruits have already started to form. I've yet to
ever see the adults. I've tried to slit the vines to remove
them and the plants would die anyway. They're not easy to
find in the vines and slitting the vines seems to kill the
plants even faster. Have you tried tinfoil collars and did
the work for you?

the adult is a clearwing moth.
i've never had borers kill mature vines, but i bury vines as
they grow so that they root along the length. i do put tinfoil
collars on young plants of the squash & cucumber family. if
borers are a real problem, you could try floating row covers &
hand pollenate the flowers...
are you slitting the vines where the borers are, or are you
slitting the entire vine looking for them? there's usually a
hole with frass near the borers location, & the moth lays the
eggs at the base of the vine, so the first place to look is at
the base, & then look for the frass.
lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.

"Katey Didd" wrote in
:


Zucchini and yellow crooknecks don't really have vines.
They're more bush shaped.

oh! you're planting bush squash... that's different, then.
yes, it's *much* harder to find & control borers & they're
much more likely to destroy the entire plant. that's why i
don't grow bush type squash. both zuchinni & yellow crookneck
should be available as vining type, but you may need to look
for heirloom seeds.

lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.

In article ,
"Katey Didd" wrote:

Tatuma really is good. They sell it in the stores here so I may give
that a try. Baby pumpkin also eats well as a green squash and I don't
recall whether we had problems with borers or not with those. It's been
too long since I've grown one.

The only ones that were destroyed by borers were our crooknecks and
zucchinis. Two of our favorites. Butternuts were not affected. Our squash
are all coming up now. Unless watered profusely, pumpkins don't do to well
where I live.

Yeah. Crooknecks, Zuch's and pattypans were what they did in for me. :-(
--
Peace! Om

"Human nature seems to be to control other people
until they put their foot down." -- Stephan Rothstein

"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
Katey Didd wrote:

"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
Katey Didd wrote:
How do you stop them from killing the vines? I tried to cover the vines
with soil but that didn't work. I tried Sevin dust. That didn't work
either. What are you doing that works? We are growing squash, water
mellons and cantalopes.


There's a squash variety called "tatuma" that is resistant to squash
borers. Just be warned that the vines are aggressive and can run about
50 feet. They taste pretty good, though.

I have not seen these seeds in the stores. Is this a winter or summer
squash?


Bob



It can go either way (but usually used as a summer squash.) BTW, the
*squash* taste pretty good, the vines taste terrible.

Apparently not to the borers. wink



Bob

"enigma" wrote in message
.. .
"Katey Didd" wrote in
:

The vine borers here get into the main stem and kill the
plant, not the seedlings. They usually start their damage
when the fruits have already started to form. I've yet to
ever see the adults. I've tried to slit the vines to remove
them and the plants would die anyway. They're not easy to
find in the vines and slitting the vines seems to kill the
plants even faster. Have you tried tinfoil collars and did
the work for you?

the adult is a clearwing moth.
i've never had borers kill mature vines, but i bury vines as
they grow so that they root along the length. i do put tinfoil
collars on young plants of the squash & cucumber family. if
borers are a real problem, you could try floating row covers &
hand pollenate the flowers...

We're retired now and can't afford to by row covers. This gardening is
starting to get expensive. Insecticide, weed cloth, fertilizers, limestone,
Ironite.........

are you slitting the vines where the borers are, or are you
slitting the entire vine looking for them? there's usually a
hole with frass near the borers location, & the moth lays the
eggs at the base of the vine, so the first place to look is at
the base, & then look for the frass.

The *&^%$# borer is usually not near the hole. I have to slit the stem and
look for it, and the plant (crooknecks and zucchini) never recovers. I'm
going to put collars on them and use Sevin under and around the collars. If
that doesn't work I'll have to give up on these squash.


lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.