Hi Artemis

You have to outsmart the pickleworm.:) that means you plant your cucs and zucs before it show up. Mine were planted, harvested and now they are out. I had a great harvest and no pickleworm. I used few times in the season BT and made sure that I cover everywhere in the plants. Right now I am harvesting winter squash, the skin is thick and the bugs don't get there anymore.

Cucumbers till recently

Summer squash in April

Today's pink pumpkin, Porcelain Doll

Silvia

I thought I planted early enough this year, but they started attacking in early May. I harvested one zucchini by then. They destroyed my cucumbers after one cuke, too. I sprayed Bt at the first sign and thought I was alright, but then they just took over. Just bought row covers, so I think I'll just replant and hope for the best. Any advice for starting cucumbers, summer and winter squash in the summer in central Florida?

Artemis, I think of summer in my zone like a winter in other places. You can grow crops but with a lot of work, bugs, disease, etc. Instead it is a good time for me to plan, clean the garden, start seedlings.

Here is a picture of a summer garden few years back, the seminole squash took over and some of them had problem with pickleworms, not so easy to grow after all.

Silvia

Some varieties of squash are more resistant than others. Cucuzzi (really a sort of edible gourd, I think) had hardly any problems with the pickle worms, but I wasn't crazy about the taste. Trombocini would have some trouble, but not nearly so much as regular summer squash. This year I tried Tatumi (really a type of pumpkin you can eat immature like a squash). I had pretty good squash for a few weeks but then the worms attacked with a vengeance. Plus it had problems with fungus. Next year I'll try trombocini or cucuzzi again. And I've never found a cuke that pick worms didn't love. It's like Silvia says. Plant them early, but here in zone 9a it's sometimes difficult to get good growth that early--for me anyway.

Silvia, wow, your garden has really changed since that picture was taken! No bananas or anything back then. Time is flying.

Bill

Hi Bill

I think that you saw the garden in the beginning, a lot has changed, the maple is gone, the small fig tree in the back is huge. And you remember the bananas! lol, they are gone too. Now on that fence I have a starfruit, sweet Tamarind, red Sugar Apple, red guava, caimito, nectarine, white peach, suriname cherry.
I remember one summer Tom sent me the gourds to plant and eat like zucchini,lol. Few were interesting to cook and the flowers were pretty white but the vines smelled not good! I don't remember the words that Tom used to describe but they were not nice,lol. It was a short lived story, we didn't plant them again and I don't do luffa either. We also planted the ones that you use like cucumbers but are not ripe melons.
In summer, I am prepared with the fruits that are ripening now, we harvested nectarines, and coming up now are lychees, white peaches,will be ready soon figs, avocados, red guava, atemoya, persimmons,red Jamaican bananas. I don't think that I can complain for the summer.:)

Silvia

Now that you mention it, I remember the cucuzzi vine did stink, and the flowers were white--gourd flowers. The squash from it didn't smell bad, but they didn't have much taste, sort of watery if I remember well. It was years ago when I tried it. And I tried the luffa as well. I found the luffa "squash" to be pretty good but the plant produced a MILE of vines for every squash. It didn't have trouble with pickle worms though, and it had tons of pretty yellow flowers. A very ornamental vine, but big. I have read that the "angled luffa" is better for eating, but mine was the smooth luffa, so maybe I need to hunt down the angled one. It seems like every year I experiment with a different squash or squash substitute and every year I find something wrong with it.

Sounds like you have a fantastic fruit harvest for this summer. I remember seeing some of those trees on my last visit, but many others no.

Bill

I have had insects bore into my spaghetti squash and thought they might be pickleworms but if it is they don't even go near the cukes and I have never had many insect problems with by cukes. Not really sure what is boring the spaghetti squash. I have butternut nearby and nothing seems to bother them except the squash bug. Live in Iowa and really want to grow spaghetti squash again next year but my fruit loss was high.