Does anybody here grow squash or pumpkins?

[Eric]

Checking to see if there's any gardening expertise in here. I've been trying to grow pumpkins for the last three years, and this year I'm actually trying to get some results. Last year my plants were destroyed by the squash vine borer, so if there is anyone here who grows squash-like plants (e.g. zucchini, pumpkins, butternut squash, etc.), how do you deal with this pest?

We had been wiping down the pumpkins to try to get rid of eggs, but just this morning we cut out something like 4 or 5 larvae from one plant. It was kind of gross.

Just curious if there's a better way.

Does anybody do any gardening otherwise? What do you grow? Tomatoes? Flowers? Anything like that?

 

[Heywood Jablomie]

We have a small raised bed where we usually grow some tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, and for the last couple of years, corn (not a lot of corn, but it is really tasty). Zucchini seems to be really easy to grow - just a couple of plants produce more zucchini than we can eat. We also started trying pumpkins, but with little success so far. My wife planted a giant variety in another area of the yard a couple years ago, the vines stretched several feet in all directions, and the damn thing produced a grand total of 3 pumpkins about 8 inches in diameter. BFD! Most of the flowers never developed into fruit (males, I think). The rest of the fruit, save 3, withered and died. We're baffled so far. This years pumpkin plants are just beginning to flower, so I'll have to wait and see.

 

[Eric]

Yeah, from what I've read, the male blossoms come out first to get the bees coming around, then the ones with the ball thing on the vine are the female blossoms that will actually become fruit.

After slicing open the vines today to get the little buggers out, we had to bury the affected sections and cross our fingers that they'll root. We'll see. The other three pumpkin plants (Jarrahdale) seem to be doing better than the one that was affected (Connecticut Field), so maybe the pumpkin variety has something to do with it? Dunno.