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I call my style "The inattentive gardener." The best solution I ever found to those nasty squash bugs was planting a cultivar that the garden ants loved to patrol. I have no clue what, if anything, they got from hanging out on that plant, but no pests attacked it. I suspect any that tried ran into angry ants! Still got big pumpkins from it too.
I am only here to say I love earthworms! And we haven't had many at all this year because it was a very low rain year for us here. And of course, the Robins went elsewhere....
Not a lot to add after Westsideboy's elegant posts above--
Nightcrawlers are not a native species to North America, but they're not considered an invasive species. I have to wonder-- the rule is no two species can occupy the same niche in the biome. They must be outcompeting a native.....
....Their benefit is two fold-- They eat organic material and turn it quickly into humus...Organic stuff in one end, humus out the other--- but that's going to happen anyway, just at a little slower rate when left up to the fungi & bacteria in the soil....The second benefit is they burrow, leaving air filled tracts, reversing compaction of the soil. That's a good thing, but much more effectively accomplished by mixing in peat moss, horse manure or just leaving last years spent vegetation (like fallen leaves) in place.
...and, as noted above, the rich get richer--Nightcrawlers aren't going to hang around where isn't already pretty good soil....Bottom line-- nightcrawlers aren't what they're cracked up to be.
And BTW- cutting a worm in two with a spade doesn't kill the worm. It propagates them. Segmented worms ae pretty good at regeneration....On the other hand, you should be using a fork to turn over soil, not a shovel.
Musquee de Provence. They are good eating pumpkins, ideal for frying up slices, although I prefer Kabochas or similar types because of the sweet potato-like grain of the flesh. The Musquee is a touch stringier, but still really good. The fruit lasts all winter and into the spring too in a cellar or basement.
But to the point, the ants were all over the vine. I have never seen this with my other squash/pumpkin plants. The vine is huge and the ants used it as a highway around the garden area. No squash bugs on it or eggs. I can't be 100% sure it was the ants, but the other cultivars I planted next to them had bad squash bug problems, really a struggle to keep the vine alive long enough to grow the fruit. They had no ants on them.
Thank you. I am going to need luck and a few dozen angels watching over the garden and I!
You grow the garden.
The angels will come.
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The best solution I ever found to those nasty squash bugs was planting a cultivar that the garden ants loved to patrol. I have no clue what, if anything, they got from hanging out on that plant, but no pests attacked it. I suspect any that tried ran into angry ants! Still got big pumpkins from it too.
