The #1 SECRET To Growing ZUCCHINI SQUASH and CUCUMBERS (Plus 2 Tips)

good morning growers it's saturday july 3rd and it's a beautiful summer day here on the southeastern coast of north carolina today i'm going to show you all the number one mistake gardeners make when growing cucumbers zucchini and summer squash and how to have healthy cukes zooks and squash plants all summer long if you're new to the channel please consider subscribing and hitting the bell to receive new video notifications and check out our amazon storefront and spreadshop in the video description for a list of the gardening products i use and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated cucumber zucchini and summer squash are three of the most popular annual vegetables grown but there's a problem they are very susceptible to pests and disease the three things that can ruin our season with these plants are two diseases called powdery mildew and downy mildew and the dreaded squash vine borer pest because of these three problems a lot of gardeners struggle mightily with these plants and in some areas the disease and pest problems are so bad gardeners give up growing these vegetables all together well there is a way around these problems and it's actually pretty simple later in this video i'll discuss some useful natural and organic pesticides and fungicides that we can use to help preserve our plants and extend their lives but before we get into that i want to tell you the number one mistake most gardeners are making and that mistake is that they are only growing one planting of their cucumber zucchini and summer squash these cucurbit family plants simply put don't live long they germinate quickly they grow their fruits quickly and they begin to die back quickly once these plants begin to naturally die back they become magnets for pests and disease that is because pests and diseases naturally attack weak plants once your plants get tired there is nothing you can do to preserve them i don't care if you buy the strongest most toxic pesticides and fungicides out there you cannot save a tired cucumber or squash plant the way to have healthy plants all season long is to succession plant them because the natural lifespan of these plants are simply shorter than our growing season the problem as i see it is many gardeners treat most of their annual vegetables like they do tomatoes when it comes to growing tomatoes it takes about eight weeks from the day you put your seed in the ground to have plants that are large enough for transplanting and then about another 75 days from transplanting to get your first ripe fruit that's about 130 days total from planting your tomato seed to harvesting your first tomatoes then it takes about another two months to ripen the rest of the tomatoes on those plants considering most growing seasons are only about 180 to 200 days long in the northeast and midwest where tomatoes are most popular here in the u.s most growers only plant a single crop of tomatoes it's not like that for cucurbits cucumbers zucchini and summer squash germinate in two to three days and they're ready for transplant within about three weeks from there the first fruits are mature in about 50 days on average so they go from seed to ripe fruit within about 70 days this is literally twice as fast as a tomato so here's my rule of thumb for every one crop of tomatoes you plant you should plant two crops of zucchini cucumbers and squash that means if you grow one single tomato crop a year you should be planting at least two crops of the cucurbits if you're like me and you live in the south where our growing season is longer i plant two crops of tomatoes each season so that means i need to be growing four crops of cucumber and zucchini here you can see i'm already growing my second crop of cucumbers and zucchini that's because my first plants are getting tired my first plants have been feeding me since the beginning of may and their time in the sun is over while they're still producing food for me they're starting to get attacked by vine borers and disease there is no point in trying to keep these plants alive instead what i'll be doing is removing those tired old plants in a couple of weeks and at that point my new healthy vigorous plants will be taking over in another three weeks i will be starting another batch of cucumber and zucchini seeds because i know that in about two months i'll need to replace these plants behind me with a future planting of younger more vigorous plants as well and that is how you have success growing cucumbers zucchini and summer squash stop trying to fight a war against pests and diseases that you just can't win instead focus on timing your transplants so you have a never-ending supply of young healthy plants because young healthy plants are naturally diseased and pest resistant and more productive however that doesn't mean that we can't take some precautions and use some natural pesticides and fungicide options to extend the lives of our production plants and keep them producing for as long as possible so let's get into that so now let's talk about the natural and organic pesticides and fungicides that we can use to treat cucurbit diseases in our garden if you're curious about any of these products they are all linked in my amazon storefront in the video description so if you need them please check the video description for the link first i want to discuss the fungicides this right here is a natural and organic bacteria that's a complete disease control and you use this product for disease prevention i use these on all of my cucurbits so that includes the cucumbers the squash the watermelons the pumpkins the honeydew all of those things as well as my tomatoes and peppers this protects against powdery mildew and it protects against downy mildew as well as tomato diseases like early blight the way it works is the natural bacteria forms a web on the leaves and because the natural bacteria web crowds the leaves it doesn't leave a hospitable environment for any kind of fungal diseases to take hold now this product is more for disease prevention than a curative spray once you already get the diseases so this will extend the life of your plants you want to apply this once every seven days you need to do it in the evening after sunset during dry weather because it needs to dry on the leaves of the plant to become effective now if you need a stronger fungicide you can use a natural copper fungicide which unfortunately i just used up yesterday and i don't have the bottle anymore i threw it out and i have more on order liquid copper fungicide is a natural fungicide and how much you have to use varies based on the plant that you uh that you apply it to so you really have to read the instructions on it so check out my amazon storefront for the natural copper product copper fungicide is very strong so i overall recommend starting out your season using this bacterial spray because it is not as strong however copper is good to use when your plants already get an infection because they will keep it under control the only thing is you have to apply the copper when it is dry out you can't apply it to wet leaves now i want to talk about two natural pesticides the first one is spinosad and i have spinosad in both a concentrate form and a dust form and then i have pyrethrin spinosad is a natural bacteria it's completely organic and the bacteria kills worms and caterpillars as well as adult moths and beetles so spinosad is very effective against most pests that attack cucurbits especially the vine borer so what i recommend you do is you spray with spinosad as a general preventative every seven days to try and disrupt any kind of egg laying cycle and keep the pest pressure very low in your garden that is what you'll use the concentrate for then you can create a protective barrier on the ribs of your cucurbits using the dust and i'll show you how to apply that as well the pyrethrin concentrate isn't as effective for worms and caterpillars however it's extremely effective against beetles so if you have a problem with japanese beetles or cucumber beetles the pyrethrin concentrate is extremely effective you would again use this on a seven day rotating spray to keep the population diminished now i'll show you how to use the spinosad dust to prevent borer damage what you see in front of you is the ribs of the zucchini this is typically where the moth lays their eggs and then they hatch into larvae of the vine borer and they bore inside so what you want to do to prevent damage from the bore is to take this dust and you want to sprinkle it on the ribs of the zucchini and if you do that that will not only kill the adult moth that lays on top of the ribs but you'll also kill the larvae that hatches so that's a very good way to prevent the borer damage now spin acid and pyrethrin can both harm pollinators like bees so the wonderful thing about this spinosad dust is you can direct it exactly where you want it to be since you're placing the dust along the ribs you can keep it far away from all the flowers as you can see there are no flowers anywhere near the ribs of this zucchini so coating the ribs with this dust will not in any way harm bees so because this dust is so easy to use you can just cover the vines of your cucurbits wherever you want and keep it away from the flowers and that will keep the bees safe now the downside to this dust is that if you live in a very rainy climate like i do and you're in a rainy pattern then you can't use the dust because it's going to wash away in the rain however i do have a solution to that i'm able to use the dust right now because it's going to be dry for the next two or three days where i live but after that we're supposed to be in a rainy pattern for a few days so this is what i do when i'm stuck in a rainy pattern all i do is i take the concentrate and a simple 88 cent spray bottle from walmart and i fill with the appropriate manufacturer's direction the appropriate concentration of a spinosad mix and i keep it inside and then i come out here every every day or every other day after it rains and i spray the ribs down with a quick spray of the spinosad concentrate and because i'm using such a small spray bottle i'm able to direct exactly where it's going to go and i'm going to keep it away from the flowers so it will not harm pollinators i'm just going to coat the ribs after it rains and after things dry and then i let it sit and dry overnight just make sure you don't apply when everything is really wet you have to let it dry first and using these pest and fungicide prevention methods i've been able to extend the life of my first zucchini planting for longer than they've ever survived and i know that these plants don't look all that great but i started this seed around april first so these are about a hundred days old a hundred days in my wet humid climate usually means they're long dead and removed from my garden but i was able to really effectively extend their life and surprisingly i don't have all that much powdery mildew on my plants you can see a few spots that are starting here you can see i'm getting some yellowing and that is to be expected but it's just amazing that i have flowers on my zucchini this late on my first planting here you can even see i still have baby zucchinis forming so this really does work exceptionally well at extending the life of your plantings and getting the maximum production and maximum harvests out of all of your crops and it's not just my zucchini plants that this is working very well with it's also my cucumbers these cucumbers look really good for being a hundred days old and as you can see they are still producing fruit check out some of these monsters this is a cucumber called china jade very long cucumbers they can be up to a yard long they're very good and they're also part in a carpet so they set fruit without pollination and i'm really happy that i'm still getting production on plants this old same thing with my bait alpha cucumbers these are my favorite cucumbers of all time again these are 100 days old they're still producing some babies down here these are a super crunchy super crisp best tasting i've ever had partheno carpet cucumber so i'm getting great production on these still despite how old they are and i already showed you i have new transplants that are starting and they're going to start producing for me probably within the next two weeks so by simply succession planting your cucurbits and always making sure you have young plants producing in your garden and using those couple of disease and pest prevention tips i just gave you you will have the absolute best cucumber zucchini and squash harvest of your life so everybody i sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button and if you haven't already subscribed to the channel please subscribe for future updates and more videos like these if you're curious about any of the products that i featured in this video and all of the products that i use in my garden in general they are all linked in my amazon storefront down in the video description so check out that link if you need the products if you're interested in any channel related merchandise check out my spreadshop link down in the video description as well thank you all again so much for watching and i hope to see all of you again on the next video well it's july 4th and dale and i are hiding out from the big bad fireworks where very is scared of them poor dale's all shaken up so we have him wrapped up in his vest keeping them nice and safe and tight and we're sitting inside the kennel where none of the big bad fireworks can get us you know what tomorrow is dale tomorrow is national dog ptsd day so we'll ride it out together and hopefully we'll go a whole another year before we have to hear any more big bad sky booms sorry buddy

Channel: The Millennial Gardener

Views: 362,779

Keywords: zucchini, cucumbers, cucumber, squash, cucurbits, growing cucumbers, growing zucchini, growing squash, growing cucurbits, cucumber plants, zucchini plants, squash plants, how to grow zucchini, how to grow cucumbers, how to grow squash, vine borer, squash vine borer, squash beetle, cucumber beetle, powdery mildew, downy mildew, cucumber diseases, squash diseases, natural fungicides, natural pesticides, gardening, gardening tips, gardening tips and tricks, the millennial gardener

Id: 7uJjOpMCmwI

Length: 13min 27sec (807 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 08 2021