July 02
The Fairytale plant has had 2 male squash flowers out for a few days now. Today we wrapped the tendril around the concrete pillar and notice there is 2 female flowers on it, one is large and the fruit looks like a tiny, 2 inch size green ribbed tomato with the 3 inch flower looking pretty close to opening but still green. The other female flower is very small and the fruit can barely be seen but it's there.

On June 30th we noticed a fruit on the turban and pollinated it. Today the fruit looks to have grown quite a bit, and barely fits in my closed hand. 2 other female flowers are growing on the turban. The two turbans are so intertwined it's hard to tell which is which.
Planted 4 seeds, 2 were unknown. 1 surviving plant.

July 07
The mess of 2 turban plants have 4 total squash growing, 3 still have their flower. The other one has not gotten much bigger since it was pollinated on June 30th.
The fairytale squash has grown since it was pollinated 3 or 4 days ago. It's doubled in size to biger than my fist.
Yesterday the pepo (maybe) had a squash with the flower open. Went to pollinate it in the afternoon and there were bees inside so I didn't pollinate. Today the flower is dead.
A few days ago we harvested 3 red romaine heads. One of the plants is growing new little leaves.

July 9
Harvested the first curly red lettuce. Fertilized tomatoes, banana, and squash with tomato fertilizer, 6-12-12. Fairytale pumpkin is even bigger, will have to support very soon.

July 11
Put Fairytale pumpkin in a pantyhose sling. It weighs about 2 lbs.
Got 2 tomato plants into the ground.
Losing all hope for the Turban squashes by the tree and by the deck. Going to water them a bit less. Some leaves are still alive and it's still making new female flowers.
Transplanted the banana/casper into yellow pot. Banana tree has 3 or 4 shoots growing, with 5 big leaves.

July 13
Cut all the dead stuff off the Turban plants, looks like one was doing most of the dying. Threw away 3 dead fruits. It's mostly a vine I had moved onto the trellis, it may have gotten sunburnt. Was going to clip this dying vine until I saw a squash fruit. The end is also growing. We will leave it for now and probably cut it if the fruit dies.
The other Turban appears to be okay, the leaves are green and healthy looking. The fruit is much more green today, and bigger; it may have taken and might grow.

July 16
Tomato plant by neighbors house has two tomatoes about an inch or two big.
Cherry tomatoes by deck are growing a string of tomatoes.
Turban squash is still growing.
Fairytale is a good 6 or 8 inches diameter and maybe 5 pounds.

July 22
Spotted first female pink banana flower today. It's the one in the orange pot. It's still very small, the flower won't be ready to open for a few days. The same plant has its first male flower ready to open tomorrow.
Added some cushion to the Fairytale vine with a little bit of bubble wrap. The vine that was hanging from the string was a bit damaged. The pumpkin now weighs about 10 lbs; I can barely lift it with one hand.
The banana plant has 2 one foot tall shoots at the base with each one having 2 small leaves. They are really gorgeous.
Strung up the pepo and moved it nearer to the tree; also tied up a string support system for it.
Added magnesium sulfate to the squash and tomatoes a few days ago, July 20th.
Tomatoes have quite a few fruits going, a few sweet million cherry tomatoes and one with big heirloom-looking tomatoes.
Transplanted the early Butternut into 10" pots a few days ago. It would be nice to get seed from this type.

July 27
Fertilized with dollarama fertilizer mix, 30-10-15 with trace elements.
We have 1 delicata female flower growing, the pink banana, and a second pink banana less than an inch big on the plant by the deck. Turban squash is shriveling.

July 28
Added magnesium sulfate to plants. Pink banana squash is turning yellow and about 3 inches long.

July 29
(Copy of post to Gardenweb)
We have an Update.

It's Squash Vine Borers.

As of this morning we trimmed our 3rd and only surviving Turban/Buttercup (not quite sure which was planted) plant. We found the larvae in the stem.

For some reason we thought we might not have as much pests as we live in the middle of a city. That was wrong.

These are the Squash and the Damage done:

- 2 Buttercups/turban completely dead and stem base is mushy as if its rotted

- 1 Buttercup/Turban has been trimmed in half, other half is still thriving

- 1 Pink Banana has fruit growing, 1 leaf is wilting, will keep careful eye on this as it is susceptible to SVB

- 1 Pink Banana is growing with no signs of SVB

- 1 Pink Banana was growing find and has been wilting on and off for 2 days, will keep a close eye on this too

- 1 Fairytale looks very healthy, not susceptible to SVB or Squash Bugs, but has 1 or 2 small holes in one leaf. Fruit is growing strong. Most healthy plant we have!

- 1 pepo at the front is just making a fruit now, appears to be the delicata we planted, appears healthy, has 1 burst or damaged vine either from SVB or when we moved it and strung up said vine to our tree. Will keep an eye on this and possibly use some surgical methods (as Grow Veg would say) to slice open and inspect for the SVB grubs.

- 1 Casper/Pink Banana, again not sure which germinated in this pot. Has no damage, also is so small it hasn't any male flowers yet.

- 4 Early Butternuts, these are also so small they don't have male flowers yet. Looking healthy though, and they aren't susceptible to SVB.

I should note some of these plants were not closely inspected today. Got turned off gardening after seeing the wrigglies, so we will do a closer inspection soon.

We are looking at methods of killing them. Does anyone know if amending the soil with say, selenium or sulphur could help the plant kill insects?

Recently found a paper saying selenium in plants kills aphids when they eat the plant.

One more question: Does anyone know if C. pepo is susceptible to SVB or Squash Bugs?

Thank you.

Response to C:
We did a lot of research on this and all this information is what we found.

Given that C. moschatas are generally tolerant of SVB and Squash Bugs, you're squash's problem may be it needs Calcium, or it may need Magnesium to be able to absorb the Calcium.

The easy thing to do would be buy some Epsom salt, or Magnesium Sulfate from the bulk store. Its a very absorbable type of Magnesium.

Tomatoes and Squash seem to both suffer from Blossom End Rot, which can either be deficiency or inconsistent watering. For tomatoes, Blossom End Rot can also just happen to the first few tomatoes and the ones after won't have the problem.

It turns out water washes out the minerals from you plants soil, either from watering or rain. We thought this might have been our problem since we grow our plants in containers and it rained everyday for a week. Other people reported this happening. So just to be safe, when it rains quite a bit, add that Magnesium and Calcium to the soil.

Iron is important to add too. We haven't found a store that sells it yet.