There's been a few times so far this summer I've walked outside, knife in hand, with a determined looked on my face. As I'm leaving, I say over my shoulder, "I'm going to perform surgery." My husband knows exactly what I'm doing: waging war on the horrible squash borer bugs.
I didn't know anything about these evil creatures until three summers ago. I planted cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, zucchini, and watermelon. In the course of a few days I went from a lush, jungle-like garden to something that looked like this:
After many (embarrassing) tears shed over the devastation of my plants, I did some research. I love the internet for its visual advantage. I discovered that there was a squash vine borer grub that had hatched from the eggs laid by this ugly flying creature:
and had bored into the stem of all of my hollow-stemmed plants in the squash family. It chewed its way up the stem, getting fatter and fatter as it went along. I cut open the stem to take a look. Sure enough, this is what I saw:
An ugly white grub with a black head.
These borers work so fast that you have to be on your toes if you want to defeat them. Each year I get better at spotting the signs of their arrival. Usually I notice this first:
 |
| Frass on stem |
When I see even the slightest hint of frass, I get my knife and go out to perform surgery. Cutting carefully lengthwise up the stem and prying the stem open usually exposes the grub and you can dig it out and then cover up the plant stem with dirt. Then water well! I have performed surgery on all my squash, zucchini, pumpkin, and cucumber plants this year at least twice and so far I have only lost a few plants. They probably don't produce as much as they would if they didn't have a gaping hole in the stem, but I guess it's better than nothing!
and had bored into the stem of all of my hollow-stemmed plants in the squash family. It chewed its way up the stem, getting fatter and fatter as it went along. I cut open the stem to take a look. Sure enough, this is what I saw:
An ugly white grub with a black head. 
