In my 20 years of gardening I have never been successful with this problem
until last year. Since I always over plant these species in the hope one
will survive, I had over 400 pounds of squash, drought notwithstanding, at
the first frost and nary an insect to be found.
My secret? One bed had baby rheas in it, avid bug chasers and eaters. They
were shorter than the squash leaves so all you saw was waving leaves. They
didn't hurt the squash but they were doing something. I did not have even 1
vine borer. On the tomatoes I found 1 hornworm at a height of 6 feet. It
was covered with parasitic eggs.
The other bed was equally successful and that was in the pen with 11 ducks,
10 adult rheas and 30 chickens.
I realize that fresh manure is not allowed in the organic garden, but this
was the easiest and most successful organic garden I have ever done.
Donna Fezler
GCR
Jacksonville, IL
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sanet-mg@cals.ncsu.edu
[mailto:owner-sanet-mg@cals.ncsu.edu]On Behalf Of Peter Warren
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 9:01 AM
To: sanet-mg@cals.ncsu.edu
Subject: organic pumpkin & winter squash pest management
Hello All,
I am looking for some ideas for managing pests of pumpkin and winter squash
in Virginia in an organic way. I am particularly interested in anybody's
experience with corn gluten meal vs straw for weed suppression and also
methods of controling cucumber beetles, squash vine borers, and powdery
mildew. Any information will be appreciated. Thanks for your time.
Peter L. Warren
Extension Agent, Integrated Pest Management
Virginia Cooperative Extension
P.O. Box 30, Orange, VA 22960
phone: (540)672-1361 fax: (540)672-0234
email: plwarren@vt.edu web: http://www.ext.vt.edu/offices/orange
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 05 2000 - 20:00:28 EDT