Just for You (Assuming 'You' are Alicia)

"I think I am also over/underwatering... so what did you do to correct? My garden is puny. Stunted. And retarded. I think I planted too soon, over/underwatered, and secrete some sort of mysterious plant-killing enzyme from my fingernails. " ~Alicia

I thought this question/comment was entertaining. Not "haha funny" at Alicia's expense, but side of the mouth smirk at her cleverness. AND since she's one of two followers I can do this. Follow me and maybe you can have your own post too.

After I took my laughably little squash (the guy at the nursery really did laugh at it) home with me I followed the nursery dude's advice. Side note. My squash was so small I forgot it in the car. It ended up in the driver's seat where it was sat on repeatedly and then found a few days later unharmed. I stuck my finger straight in the ground near the base of the plant up to my hand. A whole finger length. This was to see if the soil was wet all the way down. Apparently squash are binge drinkers. Think me in college. Sober much of the time, but sloshed at the weekend toga party/luau/football game. See below.

Back to the squash. They like the soil to be completely dry, then water a lot. Water the entire area that the plant covers. But DO NOT WATER THE LEAVES. Then leave it alone until the dirt is dry again. But DO NOT WATER THE LEAVES. I had read in all three of my gardening books and been told by the nursery man to water under the leaves. We followed these instructions all the while wondering if I needed to purchase some yellow rubber rain hats for my demanding foliage. Even though we're in South Texas, it's going to rain at some point. One day it did. Lots. Thousands of big wet rain drop landed and remained on the large leaves of my squash. No big deal. It's a plant. Plants need rain. A few days later the leaves were covered in powdery white fungus. It had been mentioned so casually I didn't think much of it until the leaves turned yellow and started to die. F***! Right when I was getting the whole drunken squash, sober sober sober squash thing down. We clipped the dead leaves and sprayed the rest of the plant with a baking soda solution (3 tablespoons baking soda to 1 gallon water) and that seems to have worked. BS is a natural fungal inhibitor or something so we now keep it on hand for the deluge.

An extra special Alicia note. Alicia is awesome and half the reason I even bother to use the internet to post anything is to see what comment she can come up with. I wish I was kidding but she gave voice to pictures of my sleeping newborn. The girl has a gift for captions.