Squash help please!

I have yellow squash and zucchini plants that were going great guns. Then we had a lot of heat and I noticed some of the leaves were shriveling and dying. I work 10 hours a day, had a ton of company, then death in the family, and things have gotten away from me. Two of the plants were totally dead and we pulled tonight. The stalks were dead, yellow and mushy. And we have seen a striped bug with a black head, yellow and black wings, black vertical stripes on a yellow body (I think) and about one quarter inch long. Any idea what is going on here? Will it affect other plants? Anything I can use to control this before it destroys the garden? All ideas and help are appreciated.

Sounds like bacterial wilt spread by the cucumber beetle. Their larva eat the root. We've been using row cover on the squash & cukes -- didn't have much luck with the organic sprays (pyrethrin, Pyola(r), rotenone, DE, etc.) so are using Sevin on the not covered squash. In addition to cuke-beetle, we have borers & squash bugs but no pickle worms that I know of yet . . . http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/cucumberbeetle.html

Thanks Joze! I have sprayed with sevin twice now but may not have mixed strong enough or sprayed heavily enough. I am going to spray again and hope for destruction! I'm just hoping the rest of the crops make it to the end!

You might want to try planting nasturtiums and radishes near your squash plants. They repel cucumber beetles. You can interplant them or just place in pots near your plants. Lemon balm and lemon verbena also help keep insect pests off your plants.

We recently had an emergence of cucumber beetles at our community garden.
The striped ones showed up first, then the spotted ones. This was followed by an outbreak of powdery mildew when the hot, humid weather kicked in. I've sprayed with a milk and water solution for the mildew. This has worked well for us. I've attached a picture of the squash section of our raised bed garden. The photo is from last week. The squash are twice the size now. I sprayed with milk & water as soon as the mildew appeared and it has really nipped it.

I'm adding a link to information (including pictures) on cucumber beetles

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/cucumberbeetle.html

This link has pictures of several types of wilt, mildew and other plant diseases that may help you identify what you had on your squash.
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/PDF/IPM/disease.pdf

Good luck with your squash!

I'm organic, but I had no luck with my companion planting, and I really put those radishes, nasturtium, and marigolds quite close to the squash. I use a garlic and alcohol solution on the cucumber beetles, as well as dust affected plants with flour. I have not found a really effective solution yet, nor to the vine borer.

Is the flour for the wilt?
Have you tried Neem? I have some as my solution of last resort if everything else fails. So far the insect damage has been minor and manageable in our new garden.

I have not found many new beetle holes in the leaves since I added some more nasturtiums and lemon balm. Maybe it's the lemon balm that works best. I've interplanted planted collards in two sections of my garden bed. The collards in the tomato/basil/leek section had some beetle damage. The ones in the bean/eggplant section did not. The collards without the insect damage were close to the lemon balm and lemon verbena.

I've been placing additional flowers and herbs around the bed to attact beneficials like the tachnid fly, which is our local enemy of the cucumber beetle. The visible beetles and signs of damage have definitely decreased. Wonder if the milk spray for the mildew has put off the beetles as well.

Hi
i was just reading your thread and i too am having trouble iwth my squahs, lost one to what i thought was wilt , but looked a bit closer and saw that the vine was munched away at the bottom where it starts to grow from the ground. could this be a vine borer?? all plants looked healthy than dropped over and ppphhhhttttt gone .
garden -mermaid i have a pumkin that is getting some powdery mildew spots you said milk and water? could you tell me the ratio ? :)
I was also wondering do you srpray for mildew thatn bugs or does it matter??
thanks for any help yo can give
best
sue

taynors,
Check out this website from Ohio Ste Universuty. It tells all about Squash Vine Borer. Sounds like what you have in the garden.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2153.html

This website sells a product to control the squash vine borer.

http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=8659

This message was edited Jul 26, 2006 12:17 AM

This message was edited Jul 26, 2006 12:19 AM

Hey cool I Iron , that helps alot. I m still learning about all these bugs adn catapillars ?
I will definelty look into the gardensalive and it looks like a good product..
thansk agin
sue

Taynors, any garden center or hardware store sells the rotenone/pyrethrin mix, so you don't need to shell out for the shipping. It's "organic," but it's not harmless: "broad spectrum" means "kills every dang thing" including ladybugs, bees, etc. Use it where it cannot harm fish, and late afternoon when the blooms have closed, or your bees will be killed, and you need them for those crops. I believe Sevin, espec. in the wettable powder form, is a pesticide that bees will actually carry back to the hive, so spraying that at dusk is also good. This isn't just granola advice for the organic grower: we all need the bees, and indiscriminate pesticide use is a big concern for conventional farmers and gardeners too. In the city near me, gardeners do everything they can to woo the rare honeybee to their gardens, only to have one person on the street wipe them out with an enthusiastic late morning dusting of Sevin.

Also do wear a mask. You can always read up on rotenone: most organic growers no longer use it, and there's some research connecting it to Parkinson's. I use it sometimes, but as directly as possible: I will 'paint' it on the stems of my squash, avoiding the blooms, to kill the borer larvae as they hatch, per Dill's advice. Anyway, just a heads up. Good luck!

And that does sound like a borer got into your squash. If you were to slit up the stem, you might find the grub, but likely there's more than one in there. Gardens Alive also sells beneficial nematodes that you can "inject" into the stem of a squash (like they do w/ Bt), but man, that seems like a lot of trouble for an iffy result. Anyone try it?

A good site for how to spray pesticides w/o killing honeybees: http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/sheets/honeybee.html

good to know Zeppy
I do usually spray at dusk about 9;00pm, the only thing i have been using Sevin on is my eggplant and i use a cup to cover the flowers.
But the cuc bettle is really a problerm right now and i am learining so much from all of you thank you for all your hellp.
Painting it on sounds like a good idea, I was wondering about any other ways to use a pesticide with out hurting the bees,
I do have 3 hummer ,butter and bee gardens , sunflowers all over the place in our acreage. to help with the bees.
will look more into that link
thanks again for all the help
best
sue

Looks like you're doing everything right. My problem is that the cuke beetles like to hide *in* the flowers. So I squirt them out with a squirt bottle w/ a little soap in it and they fall into a bucket of soapy water underneath. Anyone say "labor intensive?"

LABOR INTESIVE LOL :) or you could say LABOR OF LOVE the toughest job you'lll ever love LOL :))))))))
I found a jap bettle upsided down in a marigold, it looked like his head was stuck, snipped him right in half muahahahahha
im being invaded by the cuc bettle ,man what a war, I wonder if we could send them to, say somewhere else . LOL :o
best wishes adn tomoto kisses
sue