Summer's End In Sight

[GoDawgs]

Spring/summer things continue to finish in the garden. It's about time. All but a few of the tomatoes are done and gone. Bella Rose continues to hang in there and has been declared the Most Disease Resistant of the 20 varieties I grew this year.


The Colossus field peas finished their first round of peas and after a rest they're putting out more flowers. The squash bugs have finally shown up and if I don't do an evening pyrethrum spray around dark, the emerging peas will become full of stings and be unusable. We keep having late afternoon/early evening rains but I think I’ll try to treat them this evening hoping to knock back the squash and leaffooted bugs.

With all the afternoon rains precluding the application of fungicide, the funk is now attacking the cukes. I don't know if it's reversible or not. From internet photos it looks like the start of downy mildew.



I saw wilting at the end of one cuke and one squash vine and found a hole in each.





After carefully cutting off each terminal section I slit them open and found the pickleworm culprit. It looks like both the squash and cukes have been hit by another round of pickleworms, the latest they’ve ever been around. I'm hoping the plants will send out a new vine section to take over the job.



There are two new cuke plants under the lights and about ready for transplanting. This is probably the first time that I've been diligent about having new plants ready to go for succession planting.

Yesterday I harvested one of the two Zuchetta rampicante squash as my fingernail didn’t leave a dent in the skin. It weighed in at 7 lbs. I had to use loppers to cut through the hard stem!



I’m amazed that the SVB’s didn’t find the stem but that may be due to the weeds that have grown up around the vines.



This was one of this year’s “toys”. I’ve never grown it before but if it truly tastes like a winter squash, it will have a permanent home in the garden.

[GreenThumbGal_07]

Amazing squash! You could wear it around your neck at Hallowe'en. Hope it tastes good.

[b54red]

Dawg, those cucumbers with the yellow spots look like squash bug stings. I had the same thing happen to some of my cucumbers and found a few squash bugs in them and sprayed with Permethrin and Dawn and no more problems for a good while. That spray also works for pickle worms but it won't affect the ones already inside the plant. I make sure to use that spray only late in the evening and it also seems to be when it is most effective. I wish I had bought the Stihl power fogger much earlier but since I got it I have found the fogging really is much more effective in getting pests like stinkbugs, leaf footed bugs, squash bugs, and pickle worms. The best thing is it only takes a few minutes to apply a good spray to everything. I can't wait to see if the liquid bacillus thuringiensis is as effective as the dipel dust because if it is it will be so much easier to apply with this fogger than cranking the duster till my arm is numb.

Bill