What's all over my zucchini plants?

[adamra1]

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum and built my first raised garden this spring. I am located in central Florida and planted around March 20th. The squash and zucchini are growing like crazy but I found hundreds of these little black things on the leaves this week, which I am assuming are some type of eggs. They are mostly on the tops of the leaves in shade of another leaf but also around the stems and base of the plant. What are these and what can I use to get rid of them? I am trying to go organic but at this point, I am just wanting to save this crop. They do not appear to be moving and are just stationary.

[bri80]

Looks like some sort of caterpillar/worm poop to me. Are there leaves being eaten?

[applestar]

Agree looks like poop. Look at the leaf or foliage immediately above the stuff (under leaf or stem if necessary). If no luck, rinse these off with water so you can use the next deposit to help you spot the culprit.

[adamra1]

I will do a little more investigation and see what I can find. I was amazed at the amount of this "poop" on the leaves. Its all over the place.

[imafan26]

Look under the leaves and go out in the evening sometimes the caterpillars are larvae of night flying moths.

[adamra1]

I will go out with a flashlight tonight and check to see if see any caterpillars or moths. They do not seem to be eating the zucchini or squash leaves at this point. Here are some more photos. Do you think these are just poop or larvae of some sort? .

[applestar]

In that last photo, I think I'm seeing yellow poop as well as white/clear looking poop. The dark green poop is from eating the foliage and stems, if this was a cucumber, then fruit skin. The yellow poop would be from eating the flower petals or if this is yellow squash maybe the skin, and clear poop looks like from eating the central flesh of the fruits and/or the ovary of the female blossoms.

My suspicion is you have pickleworm type of burrowing caterpillar. Maybe melonworm is another candidate? Look for wet sawdust plug on the stems and fruits -- usually underside or where they are pressed against something. My only experience with pickleworm was when they were in a cucumber I tried to overwinter -- they normally don't survive the freeze here. If I remember from researching back then, pickleworm will eat the blossoms and fruits but melonworms will also get inside the stems.