my squash are missing!!

mcharles13 8/25/2010, 10:31 am

I have no clue what happened but this morning i saw taht all my fledgling squash are missing. i have my sfg setup like a covered wagon with bird netting over it. I also noticed that my plants have been pushed around. What the heck happened? Is this an animal that is smart enough ot move my netting and then replace it or is it a person?

This is seriously frustrating.

martha 8/25/2010, 1:32 pm

any chance of photos?

Wyldflower 8/25/2010, 1:55 pm

hmmm... plants pushed around and squash missing sounds like it may be some kind of mole or vole.. are there any holes around the plants?

mcharles13 8/25/2010, 2:08 pm

I'll check again tomorrow morning and take my camera. (get home too late tonight to see)

Literally one of the plants was completely knocked over. I suspected SVB on one and was treating it as such but this is completely confusing to me.

I lost a ton of zukes in a traditional row garden earlier and decided to try it in the SFG with regular squash but netted in. Again with the ghost vegetables!

I am so angry i could spit.

Also this particular sfg is pine with weed cloth stapled to the bottom. (dont know if that info is pertinent)

mcharles13 8/25/2010, 7:30 pm

got home earlier than i thought. I don't see any holes anywhere but these are my squash. They were not like this yesterday. They were all close to the ground and standing upright. We have not had any hard rains or winds since yesterday as well.

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These are the chicks that are in my avatar. (obviously not chicks anymore.)

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This one is my pumpkin. It's in a different sfg.

Chopper 8/25/2010, 7:39 pm

How big were they? Were they teeny and just starting? If so, iff they were not properly pollinated they may have fallen off. If they were big enough to almost eat, well, you do have a mystery on your hands. I don't suppose you have wild neighbor kids running around.

Your squash were looking a little stressed there. Are they getting enough water? Not that that would answer your question....

mcharles13 8/25/2010, 10:18 pm

They didnt look like that 3 days ago. we've been having lots of rain lately, but when it doesnt rain i'm pretty good at watering them. The drooping leaves and all just suddenly kicked in. when i started pulling off the bad stems i noticed they were all nasty inside. That's when i suspected SVB. I started spraying sevin up the breaks that appeared in the main stems.

The squash were small but looked like they were growing fast. I'm gonna start hand pollinating them to see if get better results.....if they survive. But for the future i'm gonna cover my sfg in harvest guard row covering and hand pollinate everything.

mike

martha 8/25/2010, 10:23 pm

your squash leaves look like powdery mildew. Some of my mildewy plants had healthy squash, and some had little sickly ones. I didn't have any disappear - the unhappy ones did sort of go from looking promising to being shriveled overnight. But I think powdery mildew is not the culprit in your case.

mcharles13 8/26/2010, 12:21 pm

Ok the connections are starting to all make sense.

Even though i've been dusting and spraying with sevin, i've found those irritating striped beetles on my plants. That means not only are they dealing with powdery mildew but a bacterial infection as well. It seems i've pretty much lost the battle with this batch. Harvest Guard and hand pollination here i come.

Ha-v-v 8/26/2010, 8:18 pm

Ok Im taking a jump.. they look like mine did when I had the squash vine borer, but I could be wrong Smile

Ha-v-v

mcharles13 8/27/2010, 9:59 am

Well i've decided that i'm gonna pull the plants and put something else in. My melons are still coming up and they don't have the beetles or SVB's, they are starting to get the powdery mildew but i'll spray them to get rid of that. I don't want my jacked up squash plants to make things worse for them. What would be a good "soon to be fall" veggie to put in? I'm in maryland.

mike

miinva 8/27/2010, 10:29 am

I'm a fan of swiss chard and sweet peas, personally Smile

I grow Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Peas and Sugar Ann Peas, because we prefer edible pods. Here's an article about growing sugar snap peas that was helpful to me.

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