June 20, 2011 - Lost a Zucchini

June 20, 2011 -

  Lost one of the Ford Hook Zucchini's tonight. A couple of bore worms have been working it over for a little bit. I suspected as much but could not find any evidence of it. Tonight though, I noticed the tale-tale signs of "baby poop" on the main stem. Pulled the plant and there were two worms working it over. I thought this was the case when the leaves were yellowing and dying, but I did not see anything until tonight. Pulled the entire plant, squashed the worms and threw it in the compost pile. It will work out OK though because this one had not produced any zucchini and it was being crowded by the Black Beauty Zucchini. This will now give some space for the Black Beauty to spread out.

June 21, 2011 -

Since I lost the one zucchini, Abby helped me to clear out the remaining leaves that I suspected of being infested with the larvae of the Seslid moths in the zucchinis this afternoon. The larvae hatch from their eggs that are in the "V" point of the zucchini leaves. Once hatched the larvae eat their way down through the stem and make their way to main stem. If you notice the leaves start to turn yellow but the rest of the plant does not, it is best to check for the bore worms starting to make their way down to the main stem.

You can check for them by looking at the stem. If you see trails of brownish color (kind of like baby poop) going in the stem, you have a vine borer. These little guys start off very small but as they make their way down the stem, consuming it as they go, they grow rather fat. My daughter, Abby, was very impressed with these guys and really liked the "catepillars" but I had to tell her these were very bad. So we had fun squishing them.

It is possible to control these guys with insecticide but I prefer not to do this for two reasons. (1) I have small children that like to play in the dirt around the plants and (2) I have so few bees that are coming to the zucchini that I would not want to discourage the ones that do with poisoned pollen and nectar. At this point, my zucchini can fully survive missing a few leaves. So my method it to catch it early and prevent it from happening any more. If it happens to your plants and you think all is lost, you can try to revive the zucchini but covering the main stem with more soil which will force it to root and the affected area can be safely removed after that.

If I happen to catch these guys again I will update with pictures, but hopefully that will not happen.

June 27, 2011 -

Decided to upload some pictures of the vine worm to show what the little devils look like.

This is what the affected Zucchini will look like at the base of the leaf. Notice the "baby poop" inside the stem. This is the droppings of the worm.












This is what the little booger looks like. These guys can destroy a zucchini plant rather quickly. It is best to watch out for these guys and catch them early.