I didn’t see any beetles or eggs either but all the cucurbits I was growing fell to this kind of wilt too.
I cut back leaves, sprayed with neem and other things, but it was too late.
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@bogman Thank you so much for this detailed explanation!
I fear that someone else here will throw away anything that looks fuzzy / moldy… I might end up with @kobuta’s moms method 
I had placed a bunch of seeds in a bowl of water, and the gel dissolved and fell to the bottom, and the seeds sprouted in a few days. I’ll look that up later - don’t want to sprout now of course.
Here’s one of the zeppelin cukes, almost fully matured for seed:
Taiwan yard-long beans, edible stage, the long one is 26 inches:
Next to them are the Si Gwa Luffa, also at the best eating size.
The long beans can get pretty close to 3 ft. long as they mature. This one, in the field, is close to that size, but hasn’t been measured:
For some years, I’ve been breeding one of the native passionfruits, Passiflora incarnata, with the goals of good flavor, abundant fruit production and hardiness. I crossed a VA purple flowered one with a white flowered GA plant and got a very productive, good flavored strain with lovely flowers.
Here’s one of the parents, the GA “mom” is less productive, but good flavored, capable of making large fruit and a good pollinator. Also, a beauty:
While the fruits are tasty and make outstanding juice and jam, the vines are aggressive and send runners all over the place. I mow, pull and weed eat the unwanted sprouts routinely. Otherwise, the whole garden space would be passionfruit in a few years!
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I hand-fertilize anyway (the bees don’t always find me), so this might be an option with any variety. Mulching is also supposed to be a good idea. And I’m considering just keeping the plant inside until early July, which I think is post-beetle season.
That’s very kind of you. If those seeds are unavailable from one of the companies I usually order from in February (they’re in stock now, at only about $2/packet), I will take you up on it.
@saregama Before and after. I should probably put it out of its misery, but it’s still trying to fruit.
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Yeah @smallh I feel your pain.
That’s exactly what happened to ALL my cucumber, zucchini, and butternut plants 
.
I kept thinking I was doing something wrong, I’d fertilize and use pesticides, but it continued. I finally realized it was a persistent issue that couldn’t be solved and gave up to focus on other plants.
These were facing the neighbor’s unkempt slope, which is likely a pest haven. I’m surprised they climbed up to you.
@bogman I brought a dying passion fruit vine back to life, and it flowered, but the fruit were small and hollow… any thoughts?
Thanks to @bogman’s explanation I found this - the fermentation doesn’t look so daunting (as he said!)
I can “hide” my cups of fermenting seed outdoors where they won’t be thrown away by mistake.
Any thoughts on TSP? I’ve been growing organically, not sure how I feel about using it.
Anyone grow onions?
The neighbor gave us one that was flowering, and I’ve saved seeds.
Some of them started sprouting before I got to them, though!
I’ve got ants, spiders, aphids and spider mites, along with bees and the occasional ladybug. One year I had a cabbage worm that went to work on my kale! I think the pigeons might be Uber-ing them up, those bastards.
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Seriously 
Maybe cipollini seedlings this fall, but certainly shallots and garlic in Nov.
Ooh. From seed? Shallots sound more manageable than onions, which I’ll never grow enough for my consumption (on my balcony) - so is there a point, I wonder.
I’d be happy to exchange seeds with folks here, btw.
The cipollini from seed, or seedlings, the shallots from sets, and garlic from cloves.
Are the sprouts tasty? Seems like they would be.
Step two of some “golden” tomato shrub!
Saregama, most passionfruit plants need to be pollinated by another variety of passionfruit; they’re most often self-sterile. Self-fertile varieties do exist, so it is possible to have one plant and have it produce fruit. First, they’re heavy feeders and need full sunlight and warmth. Once you start getting a bunch of foliage, vine to support the energy needed to mature fruit, you may need to hand pollinate the flowers, which is very easy.
Take a small paintbrush or cotton swab and collect pollen onto it from the flat, yellow anthers. Gently dab pollen onto the three receptacles, at the top of the flower. The swollen, outward-facing tips should get a good dusting with pollen.
If fruit still fails to form, you likely have a self-sterile plant. It looks like you’ve got a Passiflora edulis, one of the main fruit producing species. If you can locate another P. edulis, with different-looking flowers, or one that IS self-fruitful, that should do the trick. Alternately, you can buy a fresh passionfruit and plant the seeds after removing the juicy coating (aril). Taking a small file or sandpaper and making a dent in the seed coat (scarification) usually speeds up germination.
Most of the larger passionfruits are pollinated by large bumblebees or sometimes by hummingbirds. If you don’t see larger pollinators working the flowers, try hand pollinating.
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shrinkrap, are you using the dried tendril method for determining ripeness? Some say withholding water, a week before expected ripening, helps flavor; just water enough to prevent wilting. After picking, I leave melons on the table to after ripen a couple days.
Those Scotch Bonnets are lovely! Are they as hot as the original, old type? That’s the one I grow. It’s not a pretty fruit, but you can see the tam-o-shanter name in it, and it’s much hotter than a habanero.
If you haven’t made mango & habanero (any of the super hot C. chinense) bbq sauce, it’s fantastic on pork, chicken, fish, shrimp and more. You can adjust the heat to taste and it freezes beautifully.
It’s going to be hard to frost-proof the Peruvian Aji Amarillo in Oct. The plants are already 7 feet tall and making lots of green peppers. I just harvested the first four orange peppers, which is very early for that variety. It’s my all time favorite chili.
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A cucumber that was well hidden behind some leaves, not sure if edible. Wish I had some hungry large beasts.
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Your scotch bonnets are lovely as well. I haven’t tried mine yet, but will send a pic to MIL.
I am . I don’t have a lot of experience, so I could obsess for awhile about how dried is dried.
A week or so ago, a Tiger Baby was picked for me by a storm, and was quite sweet enough.
I am not sweating this ( not enough humidity!). I’m glad to get what I get.
I do have two or three melons left, two with pretty different markings from the third. The third is growing the most, suspended from a stocking. I fear it will crash from its cradle any day now, so I am watching it’s tendrils. I am hoping it’s an orange fleshed New Dawn, but will be happy with any ripe fruit and learning experience.
Not New Dawn; New Orchid.
