Well I have finally given up on my green zucchini. It is the weirdest thing! I started both yellow (squash) and green zucchini in peat pots this year and planted them out together- 3 hills of green and 2 of yellow. Right from the start or soon thereafter, the yellow did great and the green hardly grew. Now the yellow are huge and have been producing for a few weeks and the green have shrivelled and died. So anything that would bother the green must bother the yellow too wouldn't you think? What could cause such disparity?

Here's a quick info sheet, on it,
about BER in Zucchini..
Click here..

We've been discussing this about tomatoes in
some of the other posts too, many have offered some additional info there on those posts too..

Couldn't be BER since they never got any fruit. Couldn't be a lack of pollination because they didn't get flowers and the rest of the garden was pollinated. Couldn't be the soil since the yellow right next to them did fine. So is there a disease the yellow are less prone to maybe? This was the first year I grew yellow.

did you dig it up to see if the roots came out of the peat pots?

Maybe I should back up a bit,
was it the actual plants that didn't grow???
Or the fruits that didn't grow????

The plants. They grew a tiny bit but were stunted from the beginning and eventually shrivelled up.

Did you have Japanese Beetles this year???

Its possible but I haven't seen any. Oddly enough I don't ever have predator bugs usually but a few grasshoppers. But there must be something that can't effect the yellow squash as much.
Some of the leaves were gone up to the stem and some were nasty looking but there. I'm going to go take photos...

Here is a not as bad one and then a really bad one. There were 3 total and one was always a little better.


Here is a healthy yellow one right next to the others:

I was wondering about what could have nibbled on the zucchini. My peppers are doing bad this year too and it looks like they have been eaten on. Right at the connection some stalks are just gone. And the zucchini too have some places where the stalk looks cut off and the leaf is gone. Yet the pictures look more fungusy than buggy. Maybe there is a disease that yellow zucchini are hybridized against if you know what I mean.

Oh found the problem. I noticed my squash had very weak leaves near the ground; they pulled off very easily. So I pulled up the 2 plants and the stem/root was being eaten by worms and was very weak. It just must have affected the zucchini more at first. The squash have been making squash but just this week started to look worse. So the worms are white with black heads. What are they? ---

Sorry to hear about your troubles Tamara. Squash vine borers are the most likely culprits. Difficult to control. Looks like a you've got a bit of powdery mildew as well. You night think about picking up a mild fungicide to treat the foliage with. Curcurbits are very susceptible to PM.

Tamara,
I just posted a post somewhere's on those pesky critters...
If you do a FORUM SEARCH ON SQUASH VINE BORE.

I gave the one guy instructions on how to do surgery on it, and get that bore out...
and most times, not all, can still save your plant...

if you can't find it, holler.

Yes I sure do have mildew. I spray a rotation spray about once a week; it is a problem. I pulled out my plants but want to find out some info for next year and will do a search. thanks!