Yellow squash /Summer squash & tobacco solution for pest control

Yellow squash (Cucurbita pepo var. recticollis)

For the first time this year I planted about 4-5 yellow squashes instead of my usual one or two. I did not plant any zucchini this year, instead thought that the yellow squashes will fill that gap.

Aren't those yellow flowers pretty?

The squashes just started getting bigger last week.  The below pictures will show you those baby squashes.

Like the name indicates they are yellow. 

First squash that we harvested this year. Do this right and you will have fresh squashes every few days from your garden. I gave this squash to my 18 month old daughter and she looked at it carefully and said "Bannnanaaaa!":-)

 I added a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and straight to my grill it went.

Every year I struggled with squash vine borers who would attack my otherwise healthy plants and kill them with in a few days. It was very sad to watch. And this year I heard about this pesticide made of tobacco solution and decided to try it.

What I did was get some of the old cigars of my husband that dried out and he can no longer use. Add a couple to a gallon container filled with water. (A clean milk or plastic water bottle that you usually throw into the recycle will do ). With in a day or two the water will turn a dark brown color very much like black coffee. Filter it to remove any tobacco leaf residue so it won't clog your spray bottle. Dilute it and add a spoon of dish washing liquid to a gallon of your solution and you are good to go. I usually spray this on to the plants that has severe pest attack.

In this picture you can see the cigar in water. In a day or two the water will darken in color.

 Some say that instead of dishwashing liquid you can add a table spoon of oil. Clearly both have very different purposes. The dish washing liquid will reduce the surface tension of water and makes it easier to stick to the surfaces instead of rolling off. But then it has a lot of chemicals and you are spraying it on to your edible vegetables. The oil on the other hand will not mix with water. Instead of adding oil I opted to use an empty plastic olive oil bottle that you use for cooking and filled it with the tobacco solution. My theory is that the oil will imbue some of the nicotine from the tobacco and when the solution is sprayed on to the plants it will stick to the stems and the sprinkler system will not wash it away easily. Also it doesn't have any harmful chemicals as in the dishwashing soap. So far I have good results on my oil + tobacco solution experiments.   

The below is  a picture of the filtered solution before it is diluted.

 I usually dilute the solution to 1/3rd of its strength. Then this is sprayed on the stem and lower leaves nodes of the squash plants and near the soil line. So far it has been working for me with no sign of the pest attacks.

You will need to reapply every week or so (if you have in ground sprinklers or there is heavy rain) and less  frequently if you don't douse/drench the whole pant with water when you water them.