Wow. I cannot believe the C. moschatas fell to the pests. Did the squash bugs give them a disease? Or, did squash vine borers get them? My squash plants (not just C. moschata, but also C. pepo) are still going strong, and we are sick of squash, so I've been slicing up squash and feeding them to the deer. We have had squash bugs since at least June and I tried to kill them all for a week or two before I got tired of them and gave up. My plants aren't dead yet. Even the ones I planted in mid-March, which you'd think would be dead tired, or just plain dead by now, are still producing. I stopped watering the summer and winter squash some time back, having to choose what things to keep watering in while letting others go so our water bill wouldn't go sky high, so the squash plants are starting to look pretty bad without water, but they aren't dead yet. I keep saying I'm going to yank out the plants and put something else there for fall, and then I watch how the deer (especially the little fawns) "find" the ones I slice up and put out by the compost pile for them and hungrily gobble them up, so then I lose my resolve to yank out the squash plants and keep growing them....for the deer. Yes, I'm crazy that way. I also have been hopeful that if I left the summer an winter squash for the squash bugs, then maybe they'd leave the cucumber and melon plants alone.

Maybe it was squash vine borer. I'm sure I don't have enough time to plant more now.

All but one squash plant out of my straight neck squash, crook neck squash and zucchini were demolished by squash bugs while I was away last week. I had been keeping them at bay with hand picking adults and eggs and spraying the little ones with insect soap, but they took over while I was gone. They are EVIL! I have some spaghetti squash coming up on the other side of the garden that I planted a couple weeks ago. I hope it holds up- I bought some captain jack's insect spray and neem oil to try to fight them this round. We'll see...

I think I'll try cleaning out all the dead plants and putting some cucumbers in that spot- hopefully they don't get those too.