This is my first year to have my very own garden, the previous season I had a community garden plot.  It's been a learning experience to say the least.  First with the low nitrogen soil, now with all the various pests and critters.

My learning experience lately is squash borer surgery.  The bT treatments leave too much to doubt.  Did I get enough in?  Is the bug dead?  How long will it last?  Surgery is very definite:  slit the stem, dig around with toothpick, squish any found worms. 

It's exhausting though!  I have provided squash borer heaven with my renegade pumpkins and my happy zucchinis.  I dug out 5 borers today, in various stages of development.  The one I got out of my zucchini was probably 1-2days from killing the plant.  I don't know how I missed it for so long!  The stem at the base was holding on by maybe 1/8th of it's original girth.  I mounded up a bunch of soil around it and gave it a big dose of seaweed emulsion.  Hopefully it will keep thriving.

Everyday I go out there, lay in the dirt, looking under the plants and scraping off eggs.  Every day I miss some, and every few days I have to get out there with an exacto knife and a toothpick.  And every day I see that damn beetle flying around, laying even more eggs! 

This is much more frustrating than the no-growth phenomenon because I knew that had to have a solution!  This is just a never-ending battle against a very determined bug.