attack of the killer zucchini, and one slug down

[lindaj]

I went to work early and stayed at work late for ONE DAY (OK, sort of 1.5 days, since I started work early again the next day), and I didn't check the garden, and two of my zucchinis went from "not big enough to pick yet" to "too big." Not "There's no way I would eat that"-big, but bigger than ideal. Hmmph.

We also harvested the first of the grape tomatoes last night, and one Roma that had suffered from blossom end rot. I determined that the others will BER are too far gone to save, so I pulled them off the plant to let it focus its energy on the remaining healthy fruits.

Meanwhile, one of the nascent summer squashes was eaten off to a nub (which is better, perhaps, than a single bite being gone from each), and my homemade beer-in-a-yogurt-cup slug traps caught one whopper of a slug. I dumped it into the compost and refilled the traps...though I really should acquire some cheap beer for the task, rather than continuing to use the good stuff in the fridge.

Comments

[sea-dark-wine.livejournal.com]

Slugs seem to prefer *really cheap* beer. And the rim of the container you put it in should ideally be right at soil level to provide easier access -- so you might need to dig down a little. But I did this a few years ago and succeeded well beyond wildest dreams. It reminded me of "dollar pitcher night" at a popular haunt in my old college town. (What do you do with a pie pan crammed with drunken slugs, anyway?)

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I took a trowel, and dug a little hole the depth of the yogurt container, put the container in the hole, and then packed in the dirt around it. Now I have two perfectly-yogurt-cup-shaped indentations in the soil.

I'm not sure if a wider and/or shallower container would be more effective, and I can't for the life of me remember what I used the last time I built traps. Something plastic, that's all I remember, and they were crammed full of slugs.

I kinda-sorta hope that it's the slugs that are eating the cucumber blossoms and biting off my summer squash, because if it's not, I'm not sure what it is. At least I know what to do about slugs.

Then, of course, I really ought to start dealing with the powdery mildew that's appeared on the leaves of my cucurbits. Blech.

[sea-dark-wine.livejournal.com]

I've always heard 'wide and shallow' (concerning slug traps), so I've used foil pie tins and they worked fine.

What do you do for powdery mildew? I've had that on cucurbits during the rainy season in August several times before. I think I tried baking soda? or something recommended by one of the organic gardening books I have, but it didn't work very well. This was during rain and/or super high humidity almost nonstop for several weeks.

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

I tried the water/baking soda/dish soap thing on a houseplant once, and I tried that, using a strong chamomile tea for the water (I'd read something at the time about chamomile being beneficial). It helped some, but as I recall, not as much as I'd hoped it would.

I think for the houseplant in question, I ended up removing most of the infected leaves (i.e. all of the older ones) and let the new uninfected growth take over. I don't think that would work for squashes, though I did remove one very badly infected leaf last night.

Just today I read something about spraying with milk being particularly successful. I may try that.

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

I saw some slugs near the compost recently, so I know there are some in the yard. I haven't seen any snails, but who knows?

Do you think that moving them across the bike path is enough to keep them out of your garden?