Sunday, July 25, 2010

Vine Borers Win

What happens when you go out of town for a few days and can't fight the vine borers? The vine borers win.
Gnarled vines.
Shriveled fruit.


I pulled up the summer squash and zucchini vines yesterday. Poo. And now, the vine borer moth is laying eggs on my cucumber vines. I saw her yesterday by my cukes, and I freaked out. Sure enough, there were vine borer eggs all over my cucumbers. I picked them off and smooshed them, one by one. I've got to kill that moth. As soon as this rain lets up, I am going to sit outside by my cucumber vines with a mason jar, a fly swatter, and a stiff drink. I mean business.

I have 4 winter butternut squash 'Autumn Glow' planted now. Butternut squash is supposed to be more resistant to vine borers. I sure hope so!

3 comments:

Leah Maria said...

Oh no! I hate they won! I hope you are able to stop them from getting the cucumbers! I giggled when I read the plan for catching the momma moth. :)

Ginger said...

I'm so sorry!! You know I have had a terrible time with them, too. I gave up on summer squash, and without them, the borers haven't been attracted enough to my beds to mess with the cukes (fingers crossed).
I tried growing spaghetti squash, under the impression winter squash was more resistant - the borers promptly killed that. So aggravating!!

Oh well, enjoy your stiff drink and the fresh air at least :)

Lisa Blair said...

Leah - I'm going to Dallas next week for work, so I've got to get that moth before then.

Ginger - oh no! SBVs are so nasty! I guess next year I'm going to move my squash bed and cover it with row covers. I looked for traps for the moth yesterday, and all I found were yellow sticky traps. I wonder if those would work? Those moths seem too big to get stuck. I'm willing to try though.