[bgill]

I’m losing my squashes to some sort of rot. I put Sevin dust on them 3 weeks ago to take care of the squash bugs. Then they started rotting at the stems and the fruits so sprayed them with a 3-fer fungicide/insecticide/something. I’ve read to add calcium but don’t know anything about that. They get watered every other day because of the heat. No, I don’t use mulch as that tends to add to the problems here. Any suggestions on how to save them?

[BipolarBob]

I have no immediate solution but I would suggest a soil test right away. Calcium deficiency will surely cause blossom end rot. But it takes a while to get the calcium distributed throughout the soil and digestible for plants. I try to do organic gardening which means being pro-active for the next year. By adding the needed calcium for next years heavy feeders I eliminate blossom end rot. Just make sure you are not overwatering. I mulch about everything especially squash. I water less frequently and eliminate problems associated with overwatering. I manually squash the squash bugs and use homemade organic spray to deter them. Anyone else want to weigh in?

[sockmonkey]

I always have that same squash problem. Sometimes I see those “come in the night, and poke a hole in the vine” bugs, and sometimes ants. Either that or powdery mildew get them.. I have no luck with squash.

[greeneyes]

They make some foliar sprays for calcium to help with blossom end rot, assuming that is what you have. I have also read that adding a tums to the hole when transplanting helps.

I often add banana peels and crushed eggshells for melons, tomatoes etc, and haven't really had any problems with BER when I do that. I assume it would work for squash.

I try to find organic solutions and cheap solutions (banana peels and egg shells) for my garden, as I want to avoid pesticides etc.

[Sarajevo]

Can you post a picture of the affected fruits so we can ge a better idea of what you're looking at?

If it's blossom end rot, you can spray the plants with epsom salts in the evening and spread some on the soil around the plants prior to a deep watering. That should take care calcium deficiency problems.

[tillacum]

Mine did the same thing. I did get about 8 squashes, then the plants just curled up, dried and died. I don’t know what happened. They did have a LOT of squash bugs on them, I sprayed them, 7 dusted them, but it didn’t seem to help. The pots I put black powder in, have really helped my tomatoes, which were being attacked by something and bean plants are now climbing my double ended tomatoe cages.