Yesterday and today and saw flying (and landing) on my zucchini and squash plants the squash vine borer.
I was able to spray them with insecticide soap and shoo them away each time (but they did land.) Seeing how I can't be outside 24/7 to stand guard, I am afraid it's just a matter of time. After I shooed them away, I hunted and looked and wiped and sprayed...but seeing how there are many brown dots/etc already on the ground plants because of recent hard rains, I know that there is no way possible that I have wiped and sprayed every single inch of my plants. Plus the fact that the zucchini plant is so full and big and has stems that I can't possible get every place. So I'm not sure if these borers have laid eggs and if so if I have even destroyed any/all of them. A friend suggested that I wrap the vines in pantyhose and that would keep them from burrowing in to the vine. She said it really worked. Well, I'm not really sure how to do this because of all the stems, but as best as I can tell, what she means is for me to start at the base of the plant and wrap it (somehow) around the main vine and just weave around the stems. But I thought that the larvae got in the stems as well as the vine. I am getting confused when I read up on how this borer operates once the eggs hatch. So I'm not sure exactly where I'm supposed to wrap. Also, if by chance there are eggs on my plant waiting to be hatched, if I wrap it now, that's not really going to do any good, right???? I mean, I would basically just be wrapping it to the vine or stem, ensuring that it's gonna burrow into my plant. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions from anyone would help. I've read about injecting something (can't remember the name but it has initials in it) into the stems, but I don't want to do that. Also, I've read about slitting the vine (or stem???) if I can see where (and if) it enters, pulling out the larvae, and burying that part of the stem. That's confusing to me because how in the world do you cover the stem if it's 3 or 4 inches high...or if it's a stem....I mean, to cover it with dirt, I'd have to cover basically the whole bottom of the plant. And one more thing.....I give myself credit because gardening has really helped me to overcome some of my fears of insects, but I just don't think I can bring myself to pulling out a larvae. For some reason that just simply makes me shiver.
So.......comments, suggestions, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and I feel I must act quickly because I'm sure they will be back tomorrow again.
