The Battle Against Squash Vine Borers: Chapter One
Squash Vine Borers get the best of us every year- they kill most of our squash plants before we can get a decent harvest of zucchini, yellow crookneck, pumpkin, and other hollow stemmed squashes.
If your squash plants seem fine one day, then are wilted and dying the next, you’re likely dealing with the larvae of the squash vine borer.
I will tell you that you’re going to be pushed to your limits when dealing with this pest, as the symptoms are only obvious when it is too late.
If you have several squash plants, it’s just not feasible to closely inspect the stem of each plant for frass (the waste product of the larvae) every day.
If you’re low on time, tight on cash, and you just want a decent return on your squash plants, join us on this journey this summer, as we figure out how to defeat this monster- once and for all!
The First Step: Protecting the Squash Seedlings from
Aerial Attacks for as Long as I Can
Yesterday, I began transplanting my squash plants into the garden. I’ve transplanted 5 hills so far- I wanted to put this set up through the ringer before continuing on with more plantings (and more nets). It takes a few minutes to setup each plant, so I didn’t want to completely waste my time if they could not hold up to storms.
I am happy to report that they’ve held up very well in high wind, and I will continue with this method!
Before I continue on, I want to give you a few facts about borers and squash bugs. Both of them invade your plants by flying to them- some squash bugs may crawl over from another bed if you had squash planted nearby last year. They will overwinter under mulch and plant waste. Therefore, your primary method of protection for young plants is by preventing these pests from getting to your plants. If they can’t reach the plants, they can’t lay their eggs and reproduce.
Thus, we reach my predicament; I needed a setup that would:
- Be cost effective, unlike traditional netting, with large squash plants
- Be capable of being reused easily
- Allow for setup for individual hills with wide spacing (as squash requires)
- Hold up to wind and storms
- Allow adequate light and rain in
- Keep insects out
(Take a Peek Inside the Net- These Plants Are Coming Along Nicely!)
The Idea: Mesh Laundry Bags!
This probably sounds a little odd, but you really have to think outside of the box here. Traditional garden netting will cost nearly as much as these laundry bags, but it also needs to be assembled in a way that allows it to fit over these fast growing plants. You want to cover the plants until the first female flowers begin to bloom. Trying to cut, form, tape/staple, stake, and bury these nets would take far more time than it is worth when working with dozens of squash plants. If you simply used the netting as a single sheet, it would cost even more- which isn’t efficient for frugal homesteaders like us.
So what did I do, exactly?
I cut some bamboo poles (these are 6 for $1 at our local dollar store, but you could use locally sourced, free bamboo instead to lower the cost), and placed 3 halves into the ground around the squash, in a triangular shape. I want to allow the plant to push and shove the bag as necessary while it grows, so I did not do 4 stakes to hold the net taught. Then, I carefully lowered the net over the bamboo poles- this is fairly time consuming, as the net likes to catch the bamboo, which could put holes in the bag if you’re not careful.
These mesh laundry bags also have drawstrings on them, which allow me to tighten them against the supporting stakes if necessary. I did not do this, but I may once the plants become larger.
Once I had the net against the ground, I buried the edges with soil and placed a few small rocks on these edges to secure the net. I found these small rocks while working the soil- trust me, there are clearly a million uses for these little rocks!
Can We Get a Ton of Squash On a Low Budget? We’re Off to a Great Start….
So far, my costs ($1.25) for each of my 5 squash plants are:
- $0.00 Squash Plants (got them on a trade!)
- $1/each Mesh Laundry Bag (dollar store!)
- $0.25 per 1 1/2 bamboo poles (dollar store!)
As the season continues, I will also be employing a few other cheap techniques, which will not increase my cost by much at all. The most expensive method will be the vet wrap; however, if it works, the total costs will still bring me far below the costs of the equivalent weight of non-organic squash at the grocery store- let alone organic. I won’t go into much detail until I put these plans into action and blog about them in future installments, but here is a quick run down of some of them:
- Companion Planting: Marigold, Nasturtium, Cucumber, Dill, & more (the first three are in progress)
- Vine Injection (using Safer Brand BT, which is organic and proven with caterpillars and worms)
- Vine Borer Moth Trapping (yellow dish with water)
- Diatomaceous Earth
- Vet Wrap
- Panty Hose
The Marigold (Squash Companion Plant) Is Thriving Beside the Netting!
Update for 4/30/2019: So Far, So Good!
I’ve not yet posted this entry yet, but my squash plants have been in the ground for a week… and so far, so good! No pests, and many are taking root quite well now. I’m waiting on the companion plants to sprout, which will be one of our installments in this series soon.
The laundry bags have held up really nicely against all of the wind that we’re getting this spring, which is quite exciting. The wind was my largest concern with this method. The bags do wave and ripple in the wind, but they’re far from taking off thanks to the easy way that I anchored them.
Update for 5/21/2019
It has been nearly a month, and I am now wrapping up this post and preparing it for publishing. The images within the post are current; thus, you can see that this method has worked so far. Further updates will be in future posts, which will be linked to from here.
Our plants have put on many male flowers, but no female flowers as of yet. I’m sure the female flowers will come any day now, at which time I will be forced to uncover the plants and set the other measures into action. There has not been a single squash bug or squash vine borer on my plants; this is incredibly exciting, and I am very pleased with these results. This allows me to rear my squash plants to near maturity without succumbing to an infestation of borers or squash bugs!
Next, we’ll proceed with keeping the plants alive with multiple companion plantings, trap cropping, all natural squash vine borer moth traps, and natural biological pesticides.
