Mulching my Pumpkins with leaves sure seem to have really helped keeping them weed free, and survive the drought conditions here may have caused another issue. After the vines died down, I dropped the ball with spraying for pests. I'm not sure if the leaf mulch created a place for Squash bugs to lay eggs and hatch later or what, but they definitely came back with a vengeance. I sprayed them with Neem Oil, Spinosad, and a good dose of dish soap in the evening. By morning none were to be seen. Now, 2 days later there are a few on them, so will hit again today.
Our County Parks and our tractor club held our annual Harvest Celebration last weekend. While the potatoes were a bust, the Pumpkins, and Popcorn did great, ornamental corn was so-so. You can see the Pumpkin patch to the left side of the last picture.
Pest pressure was different there. We went out the first morning to pick gourds that had grown out over the first two rows of potatoes, and there were literally swarms of Cucumber Beetles coming up off the pumpkin vines. I've never seen swarms of them like that before. Strange there were hardly any Squash bugs like here at home, but that may have something to do with growing on bare dirt.
My buddy growing for the Farmer's Market had the same problem with Cucumber Beetles on his Squash plants. In fact, he's still spraying 2X a day for them trying to salvage what he has left. His location is even more drought stricken than here.
It's been 36 years since I can recall the effects of a severe drought and pest pressure and forgot how bad it was. Apparently, pests are finding anything that has green left and are attacking to survive for moisture.
Drought definitely affected the potatoes at Smeck. We planted 250 lbs. this Spring, and in a normal year would/should get 2500 lbs. back. I seriously doubt we got 100 lbs. We usually have a couple guys follow close behind the digger to keep kids back away from the apron chain on the digger, but was worse this year as potatoes were so few, they were almost knocking each other down to get to what few there were. I was following close off to the side watching for plants, and many came off the apron chain with no potatoes on them. Just didn't get the rain when needed for them to form. There is a swale in the field where the left a dead furrow several years, and there were potatoes there of some size. So, moisture was definitely lacking. Hopefully we'll have a better year next year.
