Hi All,

I'm new to the forum. Thanks for your patience.

I've been gardening in my spot in southern Maryland for ten years, and in that time I have never been able to successfully grow squash or pumpkins. What happens is that my plants start to put on fruit, and on the first hot day of the year they wilt. Within a few days, they're dead. I've been told over and over that this is symptomatic of squash vine borer, so I began to take steps.

First: I stopped planting squash. Didn't try it at all for three years. Then, the year before last, I planted a pumpkin. No dice; exact same thing happened.

So last year, I decided to wait until July, after the squash vine borers are supposed to be done. I planted my pumpkins around July 1 from seed. I also started spraying the stems with Sevin every couple of days, just to make sure.

They got big and started to put on fruit, then about the first or second week of August, same thing. All dead within a week.

I should note that every time this happened, I examined the stems of the plants and never saw holes or frass, and when I cut the stems open I never saw any grubs. I did sometimes see areas of rot; the stems would have significant brown, rotted material, and sometimes the roots were decayed. But not every time.

So this year, I planted only SVB-resistant varieties: tromboncino and butternut.

Last week, all but one of my plants died. Then, this week, my *watermelons* started to wilt. My biggest plant is nearly dead. All the leaves appear to be OK - no brown spots, although some of the older ones have started turning yellow. But now the entire plant is wilted. And I noticed that segments of the stems have brown/black spots and entire sections are basically girdled; the stems have completely turned brown and dry. I've never had any problems with watermelons before.

I should note that I have very well drained soil - it's mostly sand - and although we've gotten plenty of rain this year, it hasn't rained significantly for about a week. My plot is fertilized and mulched with straw bedding from my sheep and chicken. Although the soil quality isn't great yet, it's getting better. Also, I have a real problem keeping the squash beetles in check, although they never seem to bother the watermelons - and I don't see any on my dead watermelon plant or my remaining live ones.

Can anyone offer any insight? I can grow almost anything - but I can't grow a zucchini.