Monday, August 8, 2011

Sneak Some Zucchini Here

According to Wellcat.com, today, Aug 8, is "Sneak Some Zucchini onto your Neighbor's Porch" Day.

Apparently, by the second week of August, most zucchini growers are so sick of the stuff they must resort to underhanded techniques to rid themselves of the excess. Well, you successful zucchini growers are welcome to leave all your unwanted squash on my porch, no sneakiness necessary.

This porch needs zucchini!

Why? Because my squash plants fell victim to the squash vine borers this year, same as last year. I started with four plants, pulled out the worst two about a month ago, and thought the remaining two might be able to make a go of it. They produced flowers, but had no energy left to actually make squash. They were just trying to stay alive. The plants (leaves) looked healthy, until one looked closer at the stems to see: emptiness.

A few days ago I went out to pull the remaining two squash plants. When I got to the garden I saw this:
New sprouts at the base of the plant, presumably below the borer damage. Smart plants! (But why didn't they do this a month ago?) So I cut off the plants above the new growth. We'll see what happens.


There's already a male flower bud on one of the new plants, but I'm a long way from squash. So leave some zucchini on my porch, would ya?

Update:  my reborn zucchini went kaput.  And no one left any squash on my porch.  Boo.

2 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear of your squash. None here- I'm not a fan of it.

    This year I was proactive and treated my cukes with neem to keep off the beetles and disease. So far it's worked pretty well.

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