Squash Talk. Climbing “Trombetta”

This morning, which happens to be the Baby’s first birthday, a female blossom opened on the Climbing “Trombetta” Squash, an Italian summer heirloom from Renee’s Garden. There have been a couple other blossoms that never opened and eventually fell off. I had two squash vines and one gourd vine on this trellis, but I lost my other Trombetta vine to pests. I was beyond thrilled to be greeted by this one. Not wanting to risk it going to waste, I got a pipe cleaner to pollinate it by hand. I stagger my squash plantings so as not to lose all my squash plants in the initial wave of pests in June. There are several other young Trombetta vines on the bean tunnel that will be catching up soon.

I was led to believe that this climbing quash was resistant to vine borers. While they didn’t go in the main stem, I found one in a side branch. This plant was also a magnet for squash bugs. Squash bugs really aren’t too hard to control since they are easy to spot. I just let one of the vines get away from me.

Several days ago, I extracted squash vine borers from nearly every squash and zucchini plant in the garden. Renee’s Garden “”Tricolor Mix” zucchini are the only ones that have not attracted pests so far. Considering I only lost that one Trombetta vine and the other plants look happy and healthy, I’d say the SVB extraction went well. In North Carolina we tend to get two waves of squash pests, the first in mid June and the second later in the summer.

I couldn’t resist showing you the handsome birthday boy helping me water the garden (and himself).