Well, poop. I went out after our heavy rains this morning and early afternoon, and the remaining Opo, in the pot, looks a bit worse than B4. It certainly has stopped growing and the fruits are rotting B4 they barely get started. Up to a week ago this thing was growing a foot or more a day and flowering. There is no obvious external evidence of insect pests. Leaves well up the vine still look ok, but newer small ones are not growing and new leaves are not appearing. The leaves past 6 ft. from the ground look ok (nice and green, not wilting, but I can tell the failure is moving ip the vine. Blooming has stopped.
FWIW, the pot drains well and has new potting soil in it. Nothing fancy, it’s just the Wally World “Expert” brand potting soil, but potted tomatoes and eggplants in same are doing fine to great. It worked fine for the Opo 3 years ago, too.
This sort of thing has happened to most of my plants in this group (melons, gourds, cucumbers, etc.) the last couple years. 3 years ago the Opo was fantastic & produced until frost. Now I can’t get ‘em to make it to July? (Well, ok, last year a couple of the Opo plants were “ok” until the squirrels attacked them.) But other melons, cukes, and squashes failed in late July, similar symptoms. Some sort of vine stem attacker?? :-(
Maybe I should break open stems right when the plant completely dies and look for marauders?
This is depressing. Opo especially is just so ridiculously useful (soups, salads, spaghetti sauce filler, etc.) And “normally” it grows huge fruits.
“Maybe I should break open stems right when the plant completely dies and look for marauders?”
The way they’re dying off so fast is more than likely vine borers. :(
https://www.epicgardening.com/squash-vine-borer/