Sex or Death...veggie style

First off, for anyone who thinks the title is too dramatic, you're better off doing something else with the next three minutes of your life than reading this post. There is a real, actual crisis of pumpkin proportions going on right now outside my door. Also, I have a confession to make, of an actual sin (a murder), and if you can take that lightly, well, you have to live with yourself.

I'll get to that in a moment, but first let's talk about the sex part.

It's all over the television. "No more bees!" cry newscasters. "It must be bird flu! Or video games! Or salmonella!" postulate the theorists.

(My opinion? Pesticides and climate change. But that's too depressing to be taken seriously.)

But whatever it is, it appears to be a major downer to all the expectant flowers in my garden. They arch to the sky, all sunny and tender, for a week before deciding to blow the retirement on a yacht. I was so excited when my plants came into flower. The vines were loaded, which sent me immediately search for recipes calling for 632 cucumbers.

Not necessary. I got one or two a day for a while, but nowhere near what I was expecting. Same story throughout the rest of the garden. Beautiful blooms, many for naught. Something had to be done to help these plants exchange their pollen. You know, to get laid, veggie style.

Never fear, I said to the frustrated vines. I have Q-tips!

I was very proud of myself, by the way, at this point for thinking up a solution to the dearth of bees. Not that swabbing the stamens with a Q-tip is new, but I felt empowered and helpful, and a little bit naughty. Probably like a sperm donor, but with fewer porn mags.

Two things confronted me and my pile of cotton inseminators. The first thing was bees. Lots of them. Happily gettin' buzzy with it and rendering me useless.

Giving up on an afternoon of assisted plant sex is hard enough, but what came

next threw me into panic mode. While taking pictures of one of the many bees, I saw this:

...and began to quietly freak out. What is that on my butternut squash? And on the cucumbers! And dangerously close to the defenseless cantaloupe!

In case the picture isn't very clear, I'll describe what I saw: powdery white spots dusted all over the broad leaves, like if the sparrows in the overhanging mulberry tree were sloppily doing lines of coke. On some leaves, it was really bad and they were turning from dark green to a putrid yellow.

I swore to myself that this must have happened overnight. What had I done? I was a bad plant mommy. I was an unworthy earth-goddess-wannabe.

A quick search on the internet told me the real story: POWDERY MILDEW had seized the plants. Prognosis? Not so hot. Treatment? Should have prevented it in the first place.

But I didn't know! I yelled at bettergardenerthanyou.com. I'm a newbie with the best of intentions! I water! I compost! I trim the grass near the vines with scissors!

New England weather patterns foretold the story, though. Days so hot and humid you require goggles to dine alfresco followed by coolish nights is a portent of powdery mildew. And it's ruthless around here, I'm finding out from sympathetic friends. (Thank you, Laurie.)

More searching said to cut off the doomed parts and treat the rest of the plant aggressively with any number of things.

Diluted milk. Horticultural oil and soap. Baking soda solution.

I decided if one is good, three is great, and bounded to the kitchen to make something resembling the "beautiful soup" my dad used to cook for us in his single years.

25 ounces of water, 1tps baking soda, 1 Tbps canola oil, 6 oz milk, couple squirts of soap. Shake and spray. Like a freakin' machine gun, I mean spray.

I even made the noises. "Kachoo! Kachooo! Pkiewww!!" Panic turned to anger, which was a great thing until I got out the scissors to cut away the worst hit leaves. Snip, snip, uh, you gotto go friend, snip, bye bye, snip snip. . . . .

oh shit.

And now for the confession.

I killed her. The whole damn thing. Not a leaf, but something more like a torso or a neck. I cut the main vine of one of my beloved, beautiful butternut squashes. The same vine I have lovingly trained over a u-shaped bamboo support several weeks ago and delighted when she gave me a baby squash. And now, yes, I think she's dying.

I am a bad, bad person. This wasn't supposed to happen. I've harbored dreams of one day becoming a doctor, yet I failed at the singular, most basic precept of medicine.

To do no harm.

RIP little squashie. I'm sorry.