“The rain ruined my summer squash. Had to get rid of about 10 that turned to mush.”
Before I started learning about growing plants this year, I did not know squash was so difficult to grow. If it isn’t various bugs, it’s too much rain. I’ll swear none of that happened years ago when my parents grew squash because we had it to eat all the time. If they had trouble, I never heard about it.
I have that new seed now and I’ll try a few seeds of that, starting them in late August I think, just to see if I can grow them then and to see if growing in a container with net over them will defeat the moths/borers. Normally, we don’t have cold weather until after December. This year, we’ll probably had a deep freeze in September which has never happened.
Re: your parents' squash production: People who are good at things make them look easy. Then, some take-charge moron decides to trade off two experienced people with twice as many new people for cost savings. Then they wonder why production goes down and problems increase. The people who run around their neighborhoods hammering on doors to give away their zucchini excess are to be praised!