I made two new acquaintances in the garden this week. The first was the American Goldfinch of which the National Audubon Society book says of their call "bright per-chick-o-ree, also rendered as potato-chips", my new favorite bird fact.
The other new acquaintance this week was not as charismatic as the goldfinch...
The Squash Vine Borer is the squash killing larvae of the Melitta Curcurbitae moth. As its name indicates, it bores into the hollow stems of squash plants and begins eating the plant from the inside out. Because the pest is hidden with the plant, organic treatments are pretty hands on. The best options are either to perform plant surgery and open up a little of the stem following the bore hole to find and dig out the worm and kill it or, and this will be my preferred method, running a toothpick through the plant stem, skewering and killing the larvae but leaving the plant less damaged than opening a larger hole.Fingers crossed my spaghetti squash makes it though the aggressive acupuncture treatment!