What is going on with my plants.

[SUE DILL]

Hey, I'm new to SC midlands gardening -- we have loamy soil and top soil where I planted my garden. So i planted squash and now my baby vegis are dropping off, plants look good, but I did see some stink bugs, could this be the problem.

Also I have planted artichokes that seemed to be doing really well until a couple of days ago. The bottom leaves are turning mottled yellow... Fertilizer??? I was giving them 5-1-1 emulsified worm liquid in 1 cap in 2 gallons of water... pics below

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum!

I'm not a veggies gardener so I'll let the others chime in here...

 

[Beth_B]

I posted a similar question recently about yellow lower leaves, and @Chuck suggested it was just transplant shock. Flowers, not veggies, but a week on the plants are doing just fine. I just picked the lower yellow leaves off.

On the squash issue, I'm not sure. Have you looked at the undersides of the leaves for bug eggs?

 

[Chuck]

The weather is warm enough now and the soil has warmed enough that the plastic has become a detriment. Remove it and replace with hardwood mulch and give them a good watering. It is still a little early for squash to produce well. More than likely the baby squash are falling off because of non-pollination, which is normal. You will start to see more female flowers and less male flowers. As for stink bugs, they like to lay eggs on the underside and sometimes on the topsides of leaves. They will be in clusters and easy to see. You can smother the eggs with Neem or horticultural oil or just squish them. If they hatch out you will see a lot of small whiteish bugs with reddish legs running around everywhere. These are easily taken care of with a spinosad based insecticide.