I received this interesting article form the local extension office. I'm in Zone 6 West Virginia. It just FYI The established controls for the squash vine borer are somewhat deficient. The gardener who goes on the offensive for controlling this pest will: A. Inject Bt into the hollow stems near the base. B. Slit open the stem, remove the borers, then cover the infected stem with soil in order to grow additional roots. C. Cover the plant base with shaving cream or some other barrier. D. Cover the plant with a row cover; then pollinate by hand. These procedures seldom work well because the borers from previous seasons have entered your soil and pupated. In fact, following the above prescriptions will insure that you continue year after year to cultivate the squash vine borer as though they were your pets. The Bt does not work, because the borers work in the solid portion of the plant base, and some always seem to escape. The slitting operation does not work because you always miss one or two borers, and the plant is too weak to save at that point anyway. The barriers and row covers don't work because your pets are already in place, despite your crop rotation efforts. The above are mostly anecdotal remedies, similar to those for slugs and snails; a real waste of time and effort. With this pest, it is better to operate with defensive tactics. First, minimize your plantings of hollow stemmed cucurbits. Instead of pumpkins or winter squash, grow butternut squash. Limit your summer squash to a single variety or grow a solid stemmed variety such as Zucchetta rampicante (Pinetree Seeds Co.) As soon as your hollow stem summer squash starts to lay down from the weight of the plant, place aluminum foil on the ground underneath the stem at the base to disorient arriving moths. This will result in minimizing the attraction of your garden to the moth from adjacent and removed properties. Second, minimize the number of moths originating on your own property, by not allowing any larvae to reach the ground, ever. We'll discuss how to do that in the next paragraph. The result of this procedure, is that over time you will eliminate the number of moths hatching on your own property. And, in a few years you will have no moths except for the stray one that was blown to your property by the wind. Since you have minimized your hollow stem plantings, the outside incursions will be small, infrequent, and occur in random years if your immediate neighbors are not also growing hollow stemmed cucurbits. If they are, then you need to act in concert. If you live near to commercial growers of cucurbits, the problem may well be insurmountable. You would have to follow all of these suggestions in addition to protecting your plants with row covers. In addition, there may be some sections of the country where the squash vine borer moth is found in great numbers. As to procedure, here is where I suggest you start: First, plan on succession plantings. Pretend that your zucchini is lettuce or any other veggie that we are accustomed to replant several times. Harvest as much fruit as you can before the stems are invaded. Inspect every day that you harvest, and guess when it is about one week before first leaf wilt, based on the amount of frass and the number of holes in the stem, then pull the entire plant out of the ground. Cut off the lower section containing the larvae, and place in a bucket of water, or soapy water, or no water - whatever it takes to destroy existing larvae, or at least prevent them from ever reaching any soil, so that they can never pupate, or wrap in plastic wrap and send to the landfill with your trash. Put the rest of the plant in your compost pile. Plant one or two (or more, depending upon family size) zucchini seeds every 14 to 21 days, so you will always have fruit all summer. Over the years, your squash vine borer problem will slowly disappear (again, depending upon your immediate neighbors.) If you minimize the attraction, gradually destroy all those moths originating on your property, and plant successively, you will enjoy plenty of summer squash, and eliminate the need for chemicals on one more garden challenge. If you have but little space for summer squash, then your succession starts will have to be in containers. As you throw each infected plant away, another good sized one will be ready to take its place. Instead of having a continuous supply of squash, you might have to go without squash for a week or two between plants. That will not be hard to take, compared to the alternative.

At the time I posted this, there were no SVB yet. However I do agree that SVB, along with cucumber beetles (both striped and spotted), and squash bugs can do a number on your plants. I hand picked squash bugs and their eggs from the leaves all season, so hopefully the population will be smaller next year. I decided, though, that my problem was the soil. I cleaned out a drainage ditch and I assumed that the soil would be rich from silt and decayed plants from the past. It turns out that the soil had the nitrogen leached out of it and, when I gave the plants some nitrogen, they greened up and I got quite a few squash from them. Now, on to next year...

a farmer, and she said that it was probably the soil--that my plants weren't healthy enough to resist the insects because they weren't getting the nutrients they needed. ==>> what a bunch of nonsense ... as a newbie.. first understand.. plagues come and go .... there are high odds.. that next year will be nothing like this year... to find out if you are at plague levels.. call your county extension and/or Ag office.. and ask them generally ... if such is being noted in your county ... also.. perhaps you are overplanted... 8 of these plant.. probably needs about 200 sq feet ... i will bet you did not have your 8 plants in a 10 x 20 area .... let alone double that for 16 plants ... anyway ... full fall cleanup .. all detritus.. and debris.... and double dig the bed... and if your farmer has some WELL ROTTED manure... work that in as your turn the soil.. no FRESH manure ... and then COMPLETELy forget about fertilizer next year.. build your soil.. do NOT throw stuff on top .... and simply get ready to try again next year ...and odds are.. you will have a different plague.. and not this one.. lol ... as a farmer.. of which you now are... its ALWAYS something... heat.. cold.. rain.. drought.. solar flares ... global warming.. global cooling... bugs.. slugs.. mullosks.... whatever.. they.. we.. are never happy ... lol ken ps: 6 zukie,.. sounds like the perfect harvest.. lol ...

Is the mix in the pot the same as the mix in the bed? The bed plants are clearly nitrogen deprived, severely so. All the wood chips in that mix could explain it as they could be binding up all the nitrogen in the soil. But the pot plants don't show that so if the mix is the same stuff then that explanation won't work. So IF you are not over-watering the bed the first thing I would try is a good heavy dose of nitrogen for those plants. If that doesn't help then I'd suspect there is something else in the bed soil mix that is causing the problem. Dave