Pride Has Its Downfall: The Demise of the Buttercup Squash

For the second year in a row, my squash vines have died. The first year, it was the squash bugs that killed them—those hard-shelled creatures that smelled sourly of spoiled cantaloupe when they were smashed. When I examined the corpses, squash bug eggs were everywhere on the undersides of the brittle, gray-brown leaves.

With squash bugs, once you know what you’re looking for, it’s very easy to find them in every stage of their lives. The adults are big, usually at least three-quarters of an inch long, with dull brown coloration. Their backs are shaped like flattened footballs, and their snouts come to a small point, the better to pierce the stems of unsuspecting squash plants and their near relatives, the cucumbers and melons. They try to keep a low profile, and will move to the opposite side of a stem or leaf if they see you looking for them. Often, they may be found at the base of the plant. Sometimes, an adult squash bug or two will emerge after a heavy watering, perhaps because they don’t like being soaked.

The nymphs can be as small as a pinhead, with milky, gray-green bodies and long, thin, spidery legs. Like the adults, they move quickly to the other side of a leaf if they know they’ve been spotted. They tend to cluster on the undersides of leaves, and they’re very easy to squish when young—the mere touch of a finger will do the trick. The eggs are laid in orderly clusters on the undersides of leaves—usually squash leaves, as the nymphs survive best on a squash plant, but sometimes they appear on the leaves of other cucurbit family plants. One squash bug in my garden must have been disoriented, because I recently found a clutch of squash bug eggs on a bean leaf. When ripe, the eggs are an easy-to-spot leathery red-brown; when freshly laid, they are gray. I used to remove an entire leaf if I found squash bug eggs on it, but I later found it just as easy to pinch off the eggs and flush them down an indoor drain.

This year, the squash bugs were fewer in number, and I managed to hunt down all their eggs and nymphs before they could cause much damage to the plants. But there was another enemy I hadn’t reckoned on: the dreaded squash vine borer. The moth that metamorphoses from this horrible larva is said to be an interesting-looking creature, very much like an orange-and-black wasp in appearance, although I have never seen its adult form except in photographs. One moth may lay many eggs, and because the eggs are laid singly, all over the plant, they are much harder to find than squash bug eggs, although they are only slightly smaller and have the same red-brown color.

I crushed many of these eggs between my fingers before I found out what they were; I merely assumed they were bad because they looked like bug eggs and they were on my plants. They appeared on the undersides of leaves, along the vines, on flowers, in the curves of tendrils—anywhere a tiny object could possibly be stuck. When I saw a wet, yellow powder dripping from the underside of a vine, I thought I might be in for some trouble, but I ignored the problem, not wanting to know the truth. In fact, that yellow powder was the frass that emerged from the larva, which is an entomologist’s fancy way of saying that it was caterpillar poop.

One thing I already knew from my reading was that the cure for squash vine borers sounds worse than the disease: you have to slit the vine open lengthwise with a sharp knife and pull the creature out. While I dallied, the larvae ate away at the plants’ vascular systems, destroying their ability to transport water and nutrients to their leaves. Soon, their presence was evident everywhere, as entire vines suddenly wilted, turning a wall of gorgeous, green leaves into a graveyard in a single afternoon. I went at the vines with the knife and pulled out the pulpy, soft-bodied, maggot-like culprits one by one, but it was too late. In the end, I found at least 40 of the creatures inside the vines, some of them almost an inch long and as fat as the vine itself. The vines, already weakened by the pests, could not recover from my hacking, so in the end, I had to take out two more plants by the root (in addition to the one that an early arrival among the larvae had killed more than a month ago) and throw them in the trash.

My biggest squash vine had time to put out one fair-sized fruit and two smaller ones. They are lying on my countertop now. If I’m lucky, the larger squash may prove edible when I cut it open. There is one survivor among the squash vines. It, too, hosted its share of vine borers, but so far, it has not suffered much from being cut open at the base. I haven’t much hope for getting anything out of that vine, however: all the fruits it has produced have been afflicted with blossom-end rot. The Man with the Perfect Lawn informs me that the garden center sells a product that I can spray on the leaves that will cure the problem by providing an instant calcium supplement, but I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble. After lying on my back and cutting out those horrible creatures one by one from the vines, I’m weary of the whole enterprise. Next year, if I decide to try again with this plant, I might have to use an insecticide. For me, that’s a serious acknowledgment of defeat.

The only bright spot in this affair may be that the squash has attracted these pests away from the cucumbers and melons, which have been quite happy (except for rabbit damage, in the case of the cantaloupe). Perhaps I should change the way I view the buttercup squash and use them as decoys instead of crop-bearing plants, much as I used the radishes that I sowed among the lettuce rows. The trouble is, I have a great liking for this type of winter squash, which gives me the greater motivation to try to keep it alive and producing. One day, I must learn how to evade the legions of pests that assail these lush vines, for when the weather turns cold, there are few foods as comforting as a lovely squash. When boiled, its deep-orange flesh turns soft and smooth; when battered and deep-fried, the slivers of squash melt delightfully as you chew them, reminding you with each sunny, sweet bite of the warmth of the summer that was.

The Not-So-Cute Runt

Just as the garden has its monster plants that grab everyone else’s space, it also has those small fry that fail to thrive—for a while, at least. Sometimes it’s easy to figure them out and find a cure for what ails them, but more often they produce nothing but frustration.

I first learned about the concept of runts from children’s books like Charlotte’s Web and The Hundred and One Dalmatians. The runt, in the shape of a tiny piglet or a warm, furless puppy, sounds cute and cuddly, ready to be rescued by any reasonably sensitive, loving child. It’s (literally) the underdog, the one you root for because it has so much spirit for its diminutive size. Stories about runts are inevitably ones of overcoming adversity, of internal goodness coming through, and of unexpected triumph.

But plants that are runts are far from cute. They’re just undergrown, maybe diseased or yellowing, or possibly just weak and spindly. It’s hard to love a plant that won’t put forth new leaves and stems, especially if you’ve planted only a few of its kind. Until this past week, one of my two Green Zebra tomato plants was giving me serious worries in that vein. Of the eight tomato plants I put into the garden, that one remained the smallest, and for a while, it seemed that it had hardly grown at all after I transplanted it. There was no explanation for why it was smaller than the others; its partner plant was keeping up with all the other varieties.

I treated that plant exactly the same as the others, if not better. I showered it with just a little more water (not too much, but enough to demonstrate a certain concern). I gave it the same amount of liquid fertilizer as the others, when I used the artificial stuff about four weeks ago. Nothing persuaded it to grow faster, though it showed no indications of ill health. Then, a few days ago, it began to pick up a little. It’s still on the small side, but it’s looking more and more like a real tomato plant, something that might produce a few juicy ones by summer’s end. My runt tomato still isn’t lovable, but at least it is no longer an object of worried speculation.

Others have not fared so well. My runt squash plant, as I have explained, fell victim to a vine borer and thus perished. The eggplant that survived a vicious rabbit attack which left it with a single emerging leaflet is still in its cage, waiting for the day its leaves become big enough to withstand a few bunny bites without disappearing entirely into the bunny’s bowels. Actually, all my eggplants can be considered runts, because none is exactly thriving. I’d like to think it’s just because they haven’t yet reached that critical point in the summer when the lengthening roots start stimulating new growth and flowering, but I don’t know whether that will ever happen.

One of the three Anaheim pepper plants that I planted in a group beneath a crape myrtle tree simply refuses to grow. It, too, is caged, because three bites from any creature would effectively end its existence . . . not that it would matter much at this point, because I doubt the thing will ever produce a pepper. It is half the size of its sisters, grown in nearly the same conditions. I’ve been wondering, though, if a wandering tree root might be making trouble for the little plant, stealing away its nutrients. If that’s the case, it’s too late to correct the problem. I might throw some fertilizer granules around it, or I might simply give up and let it live out its days as a reminder of Why You Shouldn’t Plant Around Trees.

Essentially, runts in the garden are mistakes, flops, failures. They’re not there just because nature made them so; it’s the gardener herself who is ultimately responsible for noticing the squash vine borer, the inadequate nutrition, the infernal bunnies, or the thieving tree root. It still bothers me that I could never figure out what was going on with that tomato. The squash vine bothers me even more, of course, being dead. It’s a lost opportunity. The pepper plant deflates my self-image each time I hose it down. At times like these, it’s best to look away from the runts and just stop wondering about them. Success is a far better motivator, even if it offers less food for thought.

Monsters of the Garden

Certain plants meander along fitfully until midsummer . . . and then take over the entire garden once they hit their stride. I am speaking, naturally, of squash, melons, and cucumbers, but especially of the squash.

When I planted buttercup squash again this year, I had little hope for the long-term survival of the big, flat seeds that I pressed into the open earth. Last year’s plants, which I had started indoors in peat pots, were vigorous, thick-leaved, and about a foot and a half long when I planted them out in the garden, but they soon shriveled and yellowed in the inhospitable mulch. I kept them alive for a few weeks with successive applications of artificial fertilizers, but then the squash bugs laid eggs on them, and the young nymphs sucked all the juices out. It was the first time I’d ever dealt with those insects. In Colorado, where I grew up, I had never seen any such problem, though my family grew far too much zucchini every year.

This year, I never got around to planting zucchini. I didn’t want to plant two kinds of squash close together, because (according to the venerable Edward C. Smith) large groupings of the same kinds of plants make a sort of one-stop shop for marauding insects. I meant to prepare another flowerbed for zucchini, but I’ll admit, the motivation wasn’t very strong (not that there’s anything wrong with zucchini).

Perhaps sensing an opportunity to impress in the absence of its super-productive cousin, the buttercup squash has outgrown every other plant in the garden. Its vines have climbed sideways on my supposedly rabbit-proof garden fence, and as of this morning, the longest vine spans the length of the fence on one side. That means it’s at least ten feet long—and since it’s climbed up diagonally, it might even be longer. The two squash plants on the far side of the fence have been excellent producers, as well. There are at least four developing squash fruits, and the largest one has grown to the size of a softball.

I’ve had very little trouble with insects, except for the squash vine borer that killed one of the plants on the side of the garden nearer to the house. I’ve killed three or four adult squash bugs, but so far, I’ve seen no signs of their leathery, red-brown eggs, which they like to lay in several angled rows on the undersides of young leaves. The yellow-and-black cucumber beetles, which came by the hundreds last year, have been nearly absent—I’ve seen one striped beetle and one spotted beetle. The nasturtiums I planted next to the squash and cucumbers might be at least partly responsible for these insects’ absence, as their repellent effect is advertised nearly everywhere I’ve looked for information, but I think the general health and better nutrition of the plants also has helped. The gardening manuals say that weaker plants tend to attract heavier infestations of pests.

The watermelon and muskmelon plants have made similar advances across the flowerbeds, but the progress of the muskmelons has been checked by my archenemies, the infernal, unstoppable rabbits. The plants are too big to be seriously damaged by the nighttime nibblers, but nearly all of the ends have been clipped off with the greatest efficiency. An untutored eye, roving over those plants, might assume that the gardener herself had decided to prune those vines to keep them under control. This gardener, however, operating under the assumption that larger plants will support healthier and more numerous melons, would far prefer to have the vines wander at will.

So far, dressing the vine tips with cayenne pepper-laced vegetable oil has provided temporary relief for the plants, but the oil seems to cause the leaves to scorch in the sun, and the cayenne washes away each time the plants are watered or rained on. Gazing at last night’s damage (after a heavy rain), I felt rather hopeless. I’ll continue apply the mixture just to the ends of the plants, and I’ll stick some of the other growing tips inside the chicken-wire cages that I used to cover the young peppers and eggplants.

It pleases me to see my monsters grow over wide swaths of soil and fence, to try to train the unruly cucumbers up their trellis, and to watch the bees compete for places inside their bright yellow flowers. A few of the cucumbers are almost ready to pick. They appeared beneath the vines almost by magic and seemed to grow overnight from the size of a piece of chalk to nearly a foot long and an inch and a half in diameter. On the muskmelon plants, I have observed three swelling, furry, oblong objects, the largest of them about the size of my fist. None of the watermelon plants have produced viable fruits of any size as yet, though I see a few marble-sized objects that look promising.

Important though these fruits will be at harvest time, the expanding leaves—the many fingered, rough-looking leaves on the watermelon; the broad, slightly rippled leaves of the cantaloupe; great, smooth squash leaves approaching dinner-plate size; and the roughly triangular, dark-green, furry cucumber leaves—are what bring me joy right now. These ramblers and climbers take a lot of space and a lot of effort to grow, but every garden should have at least one monster to support the gardener’s ego and to impart to the entire project the luxuriant, almost decadent, appearance of success.

Rabbit-Proof Fence

Two months ago, a litter of cute, fist-sized bunnies was born in a furry nest beneath my neighbors’ kitchen door. While others fawned over the little creatures, I stood away, muttering grim prophecies that have, at last, come to pass. The rabbit is out of the bag, and he is a hungry devil, who brings all his friends, brothers, sisters, and associates to the banquet.

The main attraction of this lapine smorgasbord, for the last two nights, has been my formerly six-inch-high pea plants, tender-leaved, succulent seedlings that were far too young to be allowed out at night alone. Most of those plants are now one or two inches high, and those that have more than one leaf left can count themselves fortunate indeed. A pole bean seedling, meanwhile, fared far worse in the latest rampage, having been foully and mercilessly slaughtered, cut down to the ground just as it was feeling its way toward a strong support.

One neighbor (who is a non-gardener) suggested planting marigolds to deter the creatures. I pooh-poohed the idea. Even if I believed that marigolds are a strong rabbit repellent, I would still have no confidence that flowers alone, howsoever stinky, would deter a rabbit that knew quite well what it was going after. I offended my neighbor by mumbling something about rabbit stew. Later on, I bought a length of two-foot-high nylon-covered wire fencing and unrolled it around the garden. Perhaps the little marauders will find a way under my fence, but the barrier will at least tax their ingenuity and strength for a time, and siphon off some of the energy they have already usurped from my high-maintenance garden plants.

At night, I am re-reading Watership Down for perhaps the eighteenth time. Though I still love that tale of rabbits on the run from residential development and still sympathize with Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and the rest of their crew, I am not deluded thereby into believing that bunnies are our friends. Like all the other creatures on the earth, rabbits are herbivorous competitors that must be discouraged from consuming the dainties we desire. My mother, who memorized Peter Rabbit when my brother and I were young, says I have turned into Mr. McGregor. So I have, and it is only natural that I should. The unwritten code of the ancient and hard-working cadre of gardeners requires me to accept that I must do a certain amount of fighting for my future meals, and that the fiercest of those struggles will likely be against my fellow creatures.