Organic Pest Control Methods For Pickle Worm / Melon Worm Caterpillars.
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- Опубліковано 24 сер 2024
- Pickle Worms and Melon Worms are the garden pests that I despise the most. They can and do destroy my zucchini, squash and cucumbers quickly if I don’t prevent them from infesting my plants. I accept most bugs as being part of my garden ecosystem and I mainly focus on trying to attract beneficial insects to my garden. Predatory insects will often kill the bad bugs if there are enough of them present, but some insect pests don’t have enough predators to suppress them. I try not to use any pesticides in my garden - even organic ones, because I don’t want to harm the beneficial insects or predatory insects. However, I do use organic pesticides to control Pickle Worms and Melon Worms because predatory insects and animals have not kept them under control, and they relentlessly attack plants in the squash family. Summer squash is their preferred host plant. In this video I talk about the organic methods I have used to stop pickle worms and melon worms from destroying my plants.
Shown in the Video:
Row Cover: amzn.to/3nreXh5
Spinosad that I use: amzn.to/3BEYF7P
Other Available Spinosad Products: amzn.to/3bmC1Gf
BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis) that I use: amzn.to/315kMaC
Other Available BT Products: www.amazon.com...
As a new Florida gardener this information is greatly appreciated! With no freezing winter temps to kill off pests, its a whole different ballgame down here. Forget the war on drugs, its the war on bugs!!!!
lol. Yes the war on bugs is very intense here. Having a lot of bugs is the trade off for warm weather. I hate the cold, and I hate having to go out and cover my plants on cold frosty nights, but I try to make myself feel better by thinking about how the cold will chase the bugs away (at least temporarily). At least the insect pressure gets slightly better during fall and winter.
This is a completely different world from Michigan gardening! Up there the soil was good and the winter freezes kept the pests in check. Down here we must be so vigilant when it comes to pests. And the soil, well, it's more sand than anything else.
@@Anne--Marie the first week we moved here it rained for 3 days straight. I mean it poured. It was in july 🙄 anyway, the water was over the driveway and ankle deep over most of the yard, my husband was having a fit because we had bought a house that was going to flood during a hurricane. When the rain finally stopped he opened up the garage door to see if there was any thing he could do about the possibility of water in the garage. Not a drop of water anywhere. 30 minutes our yard went from ankle deep water to nothing. Its like living in a sandbox. Great when there's too much water but lousy to garden in.
@@gidget8717 Isn't that crazy? The water just sinks in and fast!
Our 'soil' in the back of the property was so bad that I thought that it was fireplace ash.
Buying bulk dirt down here is a joke. One is better off buying bulk compost to use as soil if you want to garden. Then top dress established plants with Black Kow.
@@Anne--Marie we've been here about 10 years, and eight years ago we started building raised beds. 4ft x 12ft x 2&1/2ft (width x length x height) So far we have 4, I would like to have 8. I'm not as active as a used to be, so we'll see about whether there will be more than 4. (That last sentence is code for I'm old 👵😆)
I'm new to gardening I went out of town and my cucumber plant was devastated from I think it's called downy mold? And pickle worms everyyyywhere! I didn't know ehat they were but now I know ehat to do. So helpful!
Oh no! Sorry your poor plant got so messed up. Those worms are the worst! I’m glad the video was helpful though!
This is a very informative video thank you so much! I also use BT/spinosad in my FL garden as its the only thing that works or I wouldn't be able to grow a lot of crops. A lot of people give me push back when I recommend these products but they are organic safer than they think.
Thank you so much for making this video. This was tremendously helpful!😊
@@Mustardseedhomesteading you’re welcome! I’m so glad it was helpful! 😊
@@floridavegetablegardening 😊
Great information! I'm going to give your suggestions a try.
Another excellent video, Elizabeth! Thank you so much. Very clear and concise.
Thank you! 🙂
Thank you! I've been picking these tiny worms off every morning. It's not too bad with young plants, but they're getting larger so picking them off is not going to work. ;)
You're welcome! :)
This was so helpful. My cucumbers and crookneck were decimated by these pests this year. I'll try again in the Fall.
Thx for all the detsils!
You’re welcome! 😊
thanks great video!
🙂
Thank you…didn’t know what was happening to my pumpkin until this morning I saw the tiny worm that was boring into the pumpkin. I have BT on hand.
You’re welcome. Yes they are very active this time of year. I need to spray again too.
Watched this video again and wonder what we’re the results of your experiment…
@@Freedom2025-x2b The experiment with growing the parthenocarpic varieties under insect netting was largely successful, in that they were able to set fruit without insects getting in to pollinate, and also the worms did not get to the plants. The 2 zucchini varieties tasted good (though not quite as good as my favorite variety, cocozelle), but the Diva cucumber was prone to bitterness when the weather got hot and dry. They tasted good when not bitter though. I will be repeating this experiment again, but next time I will build a much bigger enclosure because this time I just used some low hoops to drape the netting over and the area underneath stayed too moist. I don't think it got enough airflow with the netting being so close to the plants, and the plants got fungal diseases much worse and much quicker than usual (when grown with no netting), and this was a problem that cut the growing season short for these plants.
It is really hard not to use any spray. I used neem oil mix with water, peppermint oil and dish soap. It helps enormously. I try not to spray on fruits but again it's hard to avoid it. I will try BT. Thank you
Does neem oil with water and peppermint work?
Bt also should not affect your biological controls, such as assassin bugs, mantises, lady bugs, robber flies, and wolf spiders.
But the insecticide don't stop the moth from laying
Thank you for the information FVG! Hopefully this makes sense but, if you spray spinosad in the evening with the purpose of letting it dry before the bees come back out, will morning dew or rain reconstitute the spinosad? Making it harmful once again?
That’s a good question. I suppose it’s possible, but I think the morning dew dries pretty fast and rain would wash it away and dilute it. I try not to spray it before a rain anyway since the rain will make it less effective. I will have to research that a little more though. Also it’s mainly the inside of the blossoms where the bees go and the blossoms close in the evening so hopefully you wouldn’t be getting the spray inside the blossoms. I’m going to start paying closer attention to this though. I have lots of bees so I don’t think it harms them but I do want to be really sure. Thanks for bringing that up!
I discovered these on all of my squash plants. I have eggs everywhere and don’t know how to rid of the eggs themselves before they hatch. I have neem oil and wasn’t sure if that works if I apply it every couple days. Trying so hard not to lose my squash I don’t even care what I use I keep losing these plants and I’m tired of it lol
Ugh. Yes, they are horrible! If all I had was neem oil then I would definitely try spraying that directly on the eggs and worms until I could get something stronger. I think the neem will help some, but it may not totally resolve the infestation problem. The neem works by smothering the insect it's sprayed directly on and it can also deter insects from wanting to eat the plant. It's also supposed to help deter them from wanting to lay eggs on the plant, but if you already have eggs then you still have to deal with those. I mainly use neem for flying insects, like whiteflies, but it may help with caterpillars too. Personally, I go straight for the spinosad when I first see signs of caterpillars on my squash. They can get out of control quick! Good luck!
Do you compost the affected fruits or do I need to toss them in the trash? I’m in North Georgia. Thank you.
Yes, you can compost them. Depending on how badly infested the fruits are, sometimes you can still use them if you cut out the damaged parts (and remove the worm of course). If I only see one or 2 little holes in a fruit that looks good, then I will try to just cut out the damaged parts and still eat it. One thing I do is submerge in water the part of the fruit that has a hole in it, and if the worm is still near the hole they will often come out in the water. If they don't come out then they are probably way down in there. If the worms have already tunneled all the way through, or the fruit wasn't fully mature yet, then I don't bother, and would compost or throw away (or give them to the chickens if you have any).
Do you have the Squash Vine Borer to deal with?
I haven’t personally had them in my garden (yet). I hope I’m not jinxing myself by saying that though because we do have them in Florida and I know other FL gardeners have problems with them. I don’t know if I have just been getting lucky for the past 10 years I’ve had my garden, or if my efforts to keep the pickle worms away are keeping the borers away too.
Hi would vinegar and soap work for these?
No I don’t think that would be effective for worms. It might kill one if you sprayed it directly on the worm enough to completely cover it so that it couldn’t breathe, but it won’t kill them if they just walk across it later. It would not have any residual effect. It also could hurt your plants if you spray a lot of soapy water on it. I only use very weak soapy water occasionally on whiteflies. It doesn’t do anything for worms.
How did the parthenocarpic varieties do?
They did indeed produce without pollination and they tasted good so I will keep growing them, but I did have a problem with fungal diseases knocking them out pretty quick. I think it’s because the insect screen covering I used was too low and it seemed to keep a lot of excess moisture in under the cover. Next time I will try to make a much bigger tent for them to grow in and hopefully the moisture will be able to evaporate better.
@@floridavegetablegardening did you grow parthenocarpic cucumbers? Squash? Both? We just found your channel and your advise is appreciated for us Central-Florida gardeners. We are in our 3rd year gardening and have moved from containers to raised beds. We made the mistake of planting the squash next to the cucumbers and the worms and powdery mildew wiped them out.
@@Redhead_Motorsports I grew parthenocarpic cucumbers and zucchini. I was not very happy with the flavor of the cucumbers I tried and some of them (Diva variety) seemed to be prone to getting bitter in the hot weather. I am probably going to stick with my favorite tasting non-parthenocarpic cucumbers in the future. I grew Partenon and Dunja zucchini and liked both of those. Last year they both did good, but this spring the Dunja did not do well at all and the Partenon still stayed healthy and produced well, so I would recommend Partenon zucchini.