2021 Journal

Month	First Sighting	Insect	Plant	Treatment used
May		Leaf miners	Beets, swiss chard	agrofabric (late)
June	5/28	Aphids (black)	Fava, borrage	Insecticidal soap (2x / week)
June	6/3	Colorado potato beetle	Potatoes, tomatillos	Hand removal
June	5/28	Cabbage worms (green)	Cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli	Hand removal
June	6/19	Squash vine borer moths	summer and winter squash	Lures/sticky traps
July	?	Tomato horn worm	Red October tomato	Hand removal
Late July/Aug	7/24	Squash vine borer grubs	summer squash, pumpkins, delicata	Hand removal (surgery)
Aug	8/14	Cucumber beetle	cucumber	None
Aug	8/14	Aphids (gray)	Brussels sprouts, tuscan kale	Insecticidal soap (1-2x/wk)

Leaf miners

Leaf minors got into the spinach and beets before we were able to cover them and caused significant leaf damage. We covered the beets with agrofabric after the early signs of damage, but that seemed to make it worse since the leaf miner flies were trapped inside the cover.

Aphids

28 May — first sighting on Favas. Treat 1-2x per week with slightly weaker mix of insecticidal soap to avoid leaf burn. Reduced aphids and successfully keeping them under control with regular application. Similarly, the insecticidal soap was effective on the borrage which was affected by aphids at the same time, but was also successfully cleared of aphids after several treatments.

Cabbage worms

28 May — found on broccoli. We had relatively few cabbage worms this year and the ones that we found seemed to be on the broccoli and cauliflower rather than the cabbage. There have also been a few cross-stripe (black white and yellow) cabbage worms found on the brassicas in addition to the green cabbage worms.

Potato beetles

3 Jun — beetles and eggs found on potatoes

10 Jun — eggs found on tomatillos

17 Jun –larva on potato leaves

Relatively minor damage by potato beetles this year.

Squash vine borer (SVB) moths

May 29th — 3 traps set using lures from IPM (3 for $6+S&H) and general pest glue traps from Agway. No moths were caught using the general pest glue traps over the next three weeks.

Jun 19th — switched out the general glue traps for these yellow delta insect monitoring cards from Arbico (10 for $11+S&H) and got immediate results with the first moth caught within a couple of hours on the same day the traps were set. By Wed 6/23 we had caught about 15 SVB moths and replaced two of the insect monitoring cards with fresh ones. We continues to switch out the traps about once per 7-10 days over the next 2 months. By Aug 7th, the frequency of moths in any of the traps was very low, so we put away the traps for the season.

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Final tally of borer moths caught with the lures and sticky traps

June 19-30th ~37 moths

July 1-31st ~59 moths

Aug 1-7th ~ 2 moths [removed traps on 7th]

The first clear sign of borers damaging the squash vines was mid-to-late July. Frass was found on the summer squash plants first. On 7/24, Lisa extracted 4 borers from the summer squash including some relatively large borers, so they had probably already begun to do damage in the prior week or two. By the following Saturday, 7/31, the pumpkins were clearly suffering from stem damage and more borers were extracted from the pumpkins and summer squash. On 8/7 at least 3 pumpkins and 3 delicata plants had surgery which involved taking a steak knife, cutting a vertical slit along the stem where there is fresh frass, and removing the SVB grub with tweezers. The cut to the stem can damage the plant, but it has at least a chance of surviving. We pack dirt over the location where the stem was cut to encourage the stem to send out new roots to support the plant. If we leave the borers without extracting them, they will certainly kill the plant within a week or two, so surgery is usually the better path.

8/7: Multiple borers were found in several plants (e.g. extracted 2 or more borers from a single plant). All of the pumpkins were in very bad shape from borer damage and surgery. Similarly 2-3 of the delicata plants have severe borer damage and had significant damage from the surgeries as well. The second planting of summer squash does not seem to be affected (so far).

8/14: All pumpkin plants have died and several delicata plants have also died from borer damage. The second planting of summer squash has some signs of borer damage.

8/21: All but one delicata plant has died from borer damage. The honeynut and butternut squash appear to be resistant. The mystery squash (possibly spaghetti squash) has borer damage, but is still reasonably healthy.

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Cucumber Wilt

Cucumber wilt is caused by a bacteria spread to the plant by cucumber beetles feeding on the leaves. Once the wilt begins, the entire plant will be infected and will die within a few weeks. The first sign of cucumber wilt was Sat 8/14 and only appears to affect one of the cucumber plants so far. On Sat 8/21, still only one plant shows signs of wilt, but it has spread over more of the plant.