My squash plants are having issues. I've already uprooted large portions of the plants and fed them to the very-appreciative goats. Today, as I turned this plant over, I discovered the latest issue.
See how the vine looks as if it's been sliced open? It also has a lot of almost foamy looking frass (or caterpillar poop) around the site of the hole.
All I had to do to find a borer was continue the slice about another inch and a half up the vine. See him?
Nasty little booger!
My books suggest that the plant may have a chance of survival if I've extracted or killed all the borers and can mound dirt up over any major holes in the vine. I tried it, but I suspect this little plant is too far gone.
I also tried another method of vine-borer attack that I found less effective but which may work for you, so I'll pass it along. One book suggested taking a flashlight and straight pin to the garden at night and using the flashlight to backlight the hollow vines. Supposedly, you should be able to see the shadows of the borers inside the vines and can kill them by puncturing both vine and unsuspecting borer with the straight pin. The damage to the vine is so minimal that the plant should recover fully.
Either my flashlight was not strongly powered enough or my vines were not as translucent as some other varieties might be, but I couldn't make out much light through my vines and so didn't get the pleasure of taking out any borers in the night. Oh, well.
I've gone ahead and replanted squash in another section of the garden, so maybe our squash won't be entirely finished for the season yet.
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