Kathy, this is my first year for gardening in the yard. I have done containers for a few years though. I have seen army worms for the first time. The deer have eaten all the okra plants and half of the string beans. And my first bell peppers are being eaten by some kind of bug! You are not alone lol

-Vaughn

I feel your pain. Or at least I have. Just take a deep breath, and thank your starz you don't do this for a living. (you don't do you?!)
I got wiped out by deer, squirrels, cutworms, and one year I had about 6 tomato plants get a direct blast from Pepe Le Pew. Sometimes it is hard to enjoy it, but it will get better. Can you get one of those motion sensor sprayers? I think it is the sound as much as the spray that deters things. You might (or might not) want to warn friends and family.
Good luck.

I hear you Kathy! This is my first year with my own real garden (I had some containers last year and have always helped with my mom's garden). I was out in my garden today just doing a bit of weeding and found little green caterpillars eating my broccoli leaves. I picked off at least 3 from every plant. This is in addition the the army of slugs that I have been attempting to control by hand ( and beer) for the last week. Did I mention there are suddenly a lot of ants out there too? And my peppers, which I lovingly started from seed are refusing to grow... half of them still only have their first two leaves. I am happy to report though, that the spring which appeared in the middle of the garden has dried up finally so I no longer have to worry that the peas will get washed away. To echo Vaughn- You are definitely not alone!

Harvey, the motion sprinkler has (for now) saved the rest of my string beans

-Vaughn

I'm glad and sorry to hear other horror stories. In thinking about hanging cd's up around my tomatoes. I'm feeling better now that I've cooled off, literally. I'm starting to rethink my fall garden, having one at all. But there will be all kinds of new bugs to learn to kill. :)

Good night fellow gardeners! I wish you luck and many fruits!

Plants are stressed in high heat, especially if there is a lot wind and/or dryness as well. Those crops not appropriate for the conditions get weak and the insects make loads of progress. Most of the crops you mention probably cannot handle summer in most of texas, I suspect.

Next year try timing things such that by this time tough hot-weather crops are well along: cowpeas, lima beans, sweet potatoes, okra, seminole pumpkin. In a z9 brassicas and irish potatoes, english peas and so forth are winter crops. Beans in the phaseolus vulgaris family, tomatoes, most cucurbits, are shoulder season crops.

Take heart -- it's because you just started and your soil is not as good as it can be yet. Get a soil test, see what it needs, start a compost pile (if you don't already have one) so you can add lots of organic matter by this fall, add your ammendments (all organic, to protect the soil food web) and let your mantra be: improve the soil. The job of insects is to do away with the weaker plants so that the stronger ones survive. If you make all of your plants as strong as they can be, your bug problems will definitely diminish. It will happen year by year.

The job of squirrels, deer, birds and rabbits is to be food. Get out your gun! :)

(Actually, I hear cats can be a great help with squirrels.)

I second the motion on the motion sprinkler! Pun intended!

Mine has been doing a great job, except night before last. I found some deer tracks and a little damage on the other end of the garden from the motion sprinkler. The battery was dead, my fault!

I put a new one in and no damage or tracks from last night. I ordered a second one earlier this week for extra protection since I have a big garden. According to the USPS tracking it should be here today.

I would get a live trap and make pelts out of those squirrels! LOL! That doesn't sound very nice, but you might sell them to get the money back what you lost by the animals stealing your goods.

Where I'm at now I have dogs that are not old and without teeth like they were last year when the groundhogs made a joke out of everything I tried to do, so it's not as likely to see squirrels within miles, but the season is just starting.

SVB will sabotage every pumpkin and squash plant it can get a hold of. I had only one good experience with them, it wasn't all that good either. They killed off most of my pumpkin plants the first year that I never made precautions of them, didn't know what they were, but the only remaining one at the end of the year were the ones growing beside the cayenne pepper plants.

I decided to try other things to companion plant with a few years, but no luck. This year got lots of jalepeno seeds to plant, but can't get them to grow by seeds. Not any pepper. I had two sprouts of a pepper of some kind, one died and the other is an inch high. So until I can grow a pepper it's worthless to plant squash or pumpkin.

I am attempting to plant them in a 5 foot bed or area covering the whole perimeter of the 5 foot bed, then plant the squash/pumkin in the middle. Maybe will get some more seeds started to see if it's not too late.

If that can help, hope so. Pick the eggs off of your squash, don't ever drop them to the ground, they hatch there, put them in soapy water to die, and you will definitely prolong your squash cycle.

Forgot to mention snares, you can learn how to make them online. You can catch the squirrels and let them go miles away, away from someone else's garden.