How to Protect Your Plants from Vine Borers

Expert gardener Leslie Land helps a reader with organic gardening pest control. Also see more great green gardening tips.

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Try this dish with a variety of in-season pumpkins or winter squash.

Crudités with Pumpkin Sage Pâté recipe

Photo: Istock

By Carol Thompson

By now gardeners are well into the summer growing season. And The Daily Green recently received a question from a reader regarding a battle with vine borers, a garden pest that feeds through the stems of zucchini, pumpkins and squash, blocking water passage in the plants. We asked our garden blogger (and author of The New York Time's 1000 Gardening Questions and Answers, Leslie Land, for some tips on protecting your plants against pesky vine borers.

According to Land, there's not much you can do to prevent borers from targeting your plants. The insects enter through the vine stems, where they become safe from pesticides. However, there are ways you can help your veggies recover if they are attacked.

Even before you detect signs of a vine borer, it's a good idea to encourage vines to root at the nodes by making sure the nodes have good contact with the soil. This will give the plant extra "bases" to help nourish it if borers kill the original stem, suggests Land.

If you notice wilting leaves not attributable to heat, check stems near the base of the plant and look for an entry hole and frass (caterpillar feces). If you see them, slit the stem with a razor blade, gently pry it open, find and kill the borer. Immediately cover the wound with soil to help the plant heal.

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