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Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

Anyone who knows me knows I enjoy gardening. I probably write about it too much, but the garden is a place to go to decompress from a busy day.

At the community gardens, it also gives the opportunity for interaction with the other gardeners and the chance to learn from others’ successes and failures.
I enjoy peeking into the gardens of the others nearby. Some are works of art with large plants and large produce that I just stand there in awe as I look at them. Some are pristine and are free of any kinds of weeds and look like they could be in a magazine.

Gardening in general gives me the satisfaction of seeing a project brought to fruition as I’m generally the type of person who enjoys working toward a goal and seeing it happen.

I can’t say I enjoy weeding or standing out in the garden on hot days, but I enjoy when the work is done and I can sit back and be proud of what I’ve accomplished.

It is beyond frustrating to put in hours and hours of hard work weeding and watering only to go to the garden one day and see that one of my plants died overnight since I was last there.

The past few years, I have been battling what I have thought was a squash bug on everything in the squash family — zucchini, spaghetti squash, even pumpkins.

This time of year last year, the plants looked great and then one by one they looked like they were wilting. Then, in a matter of a day or two my previously healthy-looking plants died.

I identified the possible culprit and have worked diligently to keep it at bay. I did my research with the help of the folks at the Albert Lea Seed House, discussed a treatment plan and have been working hard at heeding the advice I was given.

Earlier in the season I saw that the bug was around as I noticed it had left behind its gold-colored eggs on the undersides of the leaves. I sprayed both sides of every leaf out there of the pumpkins, zucchini and squash, and things were looking awesome. I have repeated the spraying every two weeks at the direction I received because I was not about ready to have half of my garden destroyed again.

Things were looking fantastic, but then last week I returned to the garden one day and found that one of my pumpkin plants was showing signs that something was happening again. Instead of being strong and upright, the leaves on the plant were limp and weak.

I examined the plant to see if I could find any clue of what was happening and then immediately decided to pull it in the event it was actually something else that could spread to the neighboring plants. I didn’t see any of the pests that I had been preparing for all summer, but I saw a different bug that I had not seen before.

Luckily, however, that bug can be treated with the same spray I was using on the others, and it was time to spray again any way.

To my delight, every day I’ve gone back since, the remaining plants still look healthy, and I am getting more zucchini than I have in a few years. For now I’m crossing my fingers that the treatment will hold out, and the remaining plants will survive and we’ll get to enjoy some pumpkins again this fall.

For now, however, it’s time to relish in the zucchini I have received and make some zucchini bread — one of my top five reasons for having a garden in the first place.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Wednesday.