What am I growing?

This is a volunteer plant from one of my neighbors, via bird or wind, and I have no idea what it is. Can you tell I don't normally grow veggies?

It's spreading past it's boundries

That is a pumpkin.

Pumpkins know no boundaries.

I knew that squash wasn't a normal shape! I'm so excited now! My 6 yr old LOVES pumpkins and we've been meaning to plant some but I've been just trying to keep my flowers alive in our heat.

Is there anything "special" I should know about taking care of it? Does it require a lot of water etc. I haven't been watering it too much, so I guess I'll try to keep that routine. What about bugs? Do they bother these? I can't wait to tell my son. :) Thanks!

With all those flowers growing around your pumpkin, you should get good pollination! How exciting to get one as a volunteer!!!

Looks like it might need fertilizing. They also need more water when they are blooming and producing fruit. Perhaps FD & MG didn't zoom in on your second photo to see the yellowing of the leaves. That concerns me, but I've no idea what to tell you. Hope they come back and diagnose.

Keep an eye out for stink/squash bugs. Good luck!

That yellowing just started the other day. The squash in my son's garden looks the same way. It looks like powdery mildew. I wasn't bothering to worry about it since this was a volunteer, but I'll probably try and tend to it tonight.

Another member mentioned that since my pumpkin is starting out yellow, rather than green, that it still might be some sort of squash. :( Any thoughts?

It is possible, but since a pumpkin is just a type of winter squash, nothing to get excited about. There are pumpkins that start out yellow. It is natural for the older leaves to turn yellow. Powdery mildew looks like someone sprinkled a white powder on the leaves. That can kill the plant. The squash vine borer is the main concern and there have been a lot of discussion on this forum concerning them. Squash bugs are a pain but seldom fatal.

Ugh, sounds like I have to do a little inspecting. First I'll get a really close picture of the leaves to post. What does this bug look like? since it's a borer, does that mean it's inside and I won't see it? Now I need to Google for squash bugs. I'm not sure I'm up to this "farming" right now. I am having a hard time getting rid of these horrid lace bugs that are trying to kill my flowers, which is a big NO NO!

The borer tunnels into the vine at about ground level. At its entry point there will be frass which looks like plant saw dust. Just don't panic. There are growers who never do anything and have pumpkins. I f you spend your time fretting and worrying, it takes all the joy out of gardening.

Thanks, I needed that, because I do worry! lol I tend to overprotect my plants, therefore showering them with a little too much love sometimes. These leaves really do look like they are covered in p.m. tho.

Ok, I just went out and inspected. Not only was that torturous because it's nearly 100, but it was gross! The "pumpkin" sure looks like pm and has some little tiny beetle things on the leaves. So I went to the squash (actually it's zucchini...same thing?) in my son's garden to see if it looked the same. There was one bad leaf that I pulled and it broke off easily from the base and out came this nasty worm!! BLECH!!

So is that the borer? And what do I do now?

This message was edited Jun 29, 2005 4:26 PM

These are the leaves on the pumpkin.

Yep, that is the borer. If it has found your pumpkin vine and entered, The only effective treatment, that I have found is to use a syringe and inject liquid Bt (Thuricide ) into the stem. I usually begin a spray program, when the moth (which looks like a slightly fat wasp) appears. I can usually control them sufficiently by spraying just the base of the plant late in the evening. That is extra protection for the pollinating insects like bees. Pumpkin vines are to large for that, but most of them will root all along the vine. You can aid this by covering the vine with dirt at the leaf nodes every foot or so.

They will keep rooting?! Oh my, this fellow is right in the front of my back bed. Is this vine going to just keep going and going and going, or does it ever stop growing?

I gave away the first 2 zucchini's, but had hoped for another. Does this borer ruin the zucchini or the pumpkin? I just plan on decorating with the pumpkin.

You can find pictures of the squash bugs in the Garden Foes forum, threads titled "Friend of Foe?" 1,2, & 3.

I would reckon at some point you could pinch back the pumpkin vine so it doesn't take over. The borer doesn't eat the fruit, but the pumpkin and succhini will die off from lack of nutrients once the vine is attacked, so they should make it as long as you do as FD said and help it re-root.

Ok...so does the leaf problem actually caused by the borer, or is that another problem?

If it is, then I'm assuming the borer has already invaded the pumpkin since it has those same leaves?

Am I looking for just one worm or is there usually a lot?

Should I remove any of these affected leaves?

This vine doesn't appear to be trying to root anywhere else, it just is grabbing onto everything with it's tendrils.

Any idea what these little beetle things are on top of the leaf?

This is enough to make me never want to grow veggies.

And...I'm not actually looking for a squash bug tho, right? It's a moth that lays the borers.

This message was edited Jun 30, 2005 12:01 AM

Those look like nymphs (babies) of Harlequin bugs, though I don't understand why those would be on your pumpkins. You might post the photo in the Garden Foes forum, or Photo Forum, or ID Forum.

Yes squash bugs are separate from the moth that lays the borers. pics are in the threadss listed above. And I honestly don't know if the yellowing of the leaves is from the mildew or the borer, as I have thankfully never had borers.

In order to get it to root, cover the tendrils with soil, and they will become roots, I think, or maybe just try burying some stem joints.

Growing veggies is great fun, and usually not so much trouble. It could be their location or their genes that is causing all this trouble (i.e. weak plant or bad companions or incompatible soil). So don't rule growing them out entirely, just hand in there, :-)...

Like Farmerdill said, don't panic...

Not panic? Isn't that part of gardening?! lol We just dug the bed for my son's garden this year. We added good soil (dirt, compost, sand) and topped with lots of compost, but it's still new and not considered "good" yet. The veggies were just purchased from a local feed store, so they certainly could have been bad to start with.

We'll just play with this bunch this year, and maybe have to put a little more thought into it next year if we want to do veggies again. It certainly is a whole world of it's own, other than flower gardening. I tend to think too much and need to know too much information before I start something, (thus the "concrete") so it's hard for me just to throw something in the ground.

Thanks for all the information! I love learning from personal experiences of others, rather than just going by a book.

TamaraFaye, you really are into these bugs, aren't you?! I've seen you a lot on that Friend or Foe thread. It pays to know what/who you are dealing with tho!

Oh, my you should see me in the garden, it is a wonder I get anything else done than looking at bugs, spiders, and anything else moving around. I am like a kindergardner at Disneyland!

Don't fret about your pumpkins. You can try some smaller ones next year. This being a volunteer, you really don't know much about it.

Please keep us posted, I love a good story!