On planting organic squash

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you might be a little tired of hearing about my squash problems. We have tried so many things and have not had very much success. This year we are trying some extreme things and I am not holding my breath, but I am hoping to have some measure of success.

Even the expert gardeners we have talked to say everyone has problems with squash bugs and squash vine borers. The vine borers have been an epidemic in our garden. If we used sevin dust, as non-organic farmers do, we wouldn't have a problem at all but that is not an option for us.

This year we are using row covers to see if we can prevent our young vines from being exposed to the squash vine borer moth. I am hoping we can grow them under the covers long enough to avoid some of the horrible pests.

We have also planted some marigolds in between the squash plants and are hoping to discourage pests from our squash vines. At the very least it may be confusing to the pests. Of course the marigolds are not up yet because the weather has cooled and we may have to replant them.

It has also been quite windy and even though we have used pins to hold the row covers down, we have had to re-cover some of them. I am hopeful that using this row cover will help. After the plants are larger, we will mulch heavily and either uncover the plants at some point to let the bees pollinate the blooms or keep them covered and use a paintbrush to pollinate them ourselves.

What we go through to avoid those horrible pests and have organic vegetables!