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.

Cayenne Pepper and the Gospel of Rotten Eggs

Anytime I make a claim to knowledge in this blog, Nature comes right back and bites a big hole in my assumptions. This morning, the melon vines seemed mysteriously shorter than they had been the night before, defying the laws of time and space. I took a closer look and saw that many of the growing tips had been bitten off, leaving mere sticks at the ends of the vines. When I examined the vines more closely still, I could see that some of the big leaves had been halved by the nighttime nibbler.

The rabbits, having decimated the bush beans I had planted as decoys during the week I was away from home, must have decided that melon plants weren’t so bad, after all. At least one of them has developed quite a taste for my melons, as I found at least ten vine ends that had suffered similar damage.

Enough is enough, I thought, and I grimly looked up information on live trapping. I didn’t relish the idea of hauling them away, considering the sorts of diseases and parasites wild animals can carry (rabies, icky fleas and ticks, bubonic plague—this last one was quite common among the prairie dogs in Colorado, where I grew up). But taking them to a nice, far-away meadow with a bean field nearby seemed like an acceptable permanent solution, if it could be managed.

Unfortunately, as I learned, it’s not legal in the state of Virginia for an ordinary mortal like me to trap a wild beast, no matter what my intentions are. I would have to be licensed. Much as I want to rid myself of bunnies, my distaste for them has not yet inspired me with the zeal that would be necessary to go through that process. Next, I looked up licensed professional trappers. There’s at least one company in my immediate area that traps small animals and takes them elsewhere. I figured, though, that the company's services (quite justifiably) would not come cheap, although its prices were not explicitly advertised on its Web site.

Some kind of rabbit repellent would be my only remaining option. Later, I stopped by a Lowe’s store to survey the options. The only item on the shelves that claimed to turn away rabbits was a product compounded of blood meal, garlic, and something called “putrescent egg solids.” Desperate though I am, I couldn’t quite stomach that one, nor could I justify coughing up twelve bucks for a mixture I could easily make at home. I can produce my own spoiled eggs quite easily, thank you very much.

I hope it won’t come to that, though. Jerry Baker, author of Terrific Tomatoes, Sensational Spuds, and Mouth-Watering Melons, gives a recipe for “Grandma Putt’s All-Purpose Varmint Repellent.” The mixture contains garlic, hot peppers, ammonia, and water, plus two eggs. You’re supposed to let it sit for three or four days before using it—“putrescent egg solids,” indeed! Again, I can’t quite see using something like that, at least not yet.

Instead, I mixed half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper (the gourmet stuff, from Penzey’s Spices, which I’ve used only sparingly over the years because a dash of it goes a long, long way) into about one-fourth cup of canola oil, then spread the mixture, using an old pastry brush, on the vine tips and some of the melon leaves. In case the marauders moved on to other dainties, I rubbed some of the oil on the leaves of my pepper plants and eggplants, many of which have outgrown their chicken-wire cages. The melons are growing so fast that I will probably have to apply this mixture many times, provided it works. If not, my faith in cayenne pepper will be shaken, and I will bend to the gospel of rotten eggs.

A Tale of Two Trellises

My neighbor, the Man with the Perfect Lawn, built his trellis a few weeks ago. As usual, I’m playing catch-up—rather lamely, it would seem. We both were dissatisfied with last year’s yield of bush beans, so each of us decided to plant pole beans this year. Naturally, to grow pole beans, one needs a beanpole.

Lawn Man tried teepee trellises for his cucumbers last year and didn’t like them. This year, he has nailed together a tough-looking structure from two-by-fours. He’s a construction worker by trade. While I’ve wielded a hammer from time to time, I have little confidence in my ability to cobble together wood-frame structures. Instead, I chose materials I could easily lift and created a rickety trellis of my own from bamboo poles tied together with a kind of nylon twine that has an annoying tendency to fray on first contact.

I think this will work for the beans, but I’m not so sure about the peas and cucumbers. All the books I’ve consulted recommend nailing up netting that the peas can climb. As for cucumbers, my family has always grown them on the ground, where they trailed limply for about six feet or so. These cucumbers produced adequately, but they were never wildly successful. I’ve also had thoughts about training winter squash on my trellis, but the idea has begun to seem impractical. If the vine doesn’t climb up the thing automatically, why waste time tying up each tendril?

The melons, meanwhile, must go elsewhere. In 100 square feet of space, it’s hard to keep plants apart from each other. According to The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible, Edward C. Smith’s guide to organic gardening in raised beds, melon plants should not be allowed to mingle with cucumbers. Smith claims that melons pollinated by cucumber flowers will taste bitter. I’m not entirely sure I believe that, but planting cucurbits apart from each other makes sense to me.

Last year, I planted the cucumbers, melons, and squash together in the same infertile plot. The poor soil quality guaranteed that anything planted there would fail to thrive, but the cucumbers, at least, produced a few odd-shaped specimens. The winter squash died, and the zucchini struggled, producing only male blossoms. Both were early and frequent victims of squash bug infestation. Squash bugs prefer squash, but they don’t mind dining on cucumbers and melons. Thousands of tiny, yellow cucumber beetles, both spotted and striped, also descended on my poor, struggling plants.

I’m hoping that if I keep apart the squash plants and banish the zucchini to the front yard and the melon to the flowerbeds, the insects will be forced to divide their time among three separate locations, reducing the damage they inflict in any one spot. So my trellis will host only the beans, peas, and cucumbers, and the squash and melons will be left to find their own way.