Shriveling squash!

Today I confirmed what I suspected yesterday. My first & much anticipated yellow squash (pictured below) is withering on the vine. Sadly, it appears that all of my squash plants are showing signs of the dreaded "powdery mildew" (PM) that blights gardens wherever moisture & heat combine to create ideal conditions for this scourge of squashes & other tasty fruits & veggies. I believe PM to be what has killed my poor, delicious little fruit on the vine...














On a positive note, I found a couple of tips/recipes online for preventing or killing PM that I'm going to try out. The simplest involves using "cornmeal juice" to act as a fungicide. The recipe is simple -- add one cup cornmeal to a gallon of water, soak overnight, strain & spray on plants.

In other news, my cucumber plants are producing. I have several little cukes developing, in addition to a number of blossoms. The cucumber plants themselves don't seem to be suffering so badly from the PM that has infected the squash plants. Let's hope they stay unaffected.














Incidentally, as opposed to my first cucumber, these new ones are quite normally shaped. Speaking of the first, nearly round, cucumber - it's still on the vine, although I picked another one that had gotten rather large. I sense a salad in its future...

Much to my delight, my Ichiban eggplants are also finally producing, despite the flea beetles that have wrecked havoc on their poor leaves & flowers this summer. Right now I have one medium eggplant & another tiny one growing on two different plants. So far the Black Beauty variety just has several blossoms, but I'm hoping that at least one of these will take. I may have to finally resort to Neem oil, or other organic sprays, to kill off the bugs.

Finally, my feverfew has started to go to flower. I've thought about cutting or pinching off the buds & blooms, but they're really quite pretty, so I've decided to leave them be. They actually look quite a bit like chamomile blossoms or daisies. The good thing about leaving the flowers is that I read that because of their strong odor, they repel insects.