This has probably been covered elsewhere, but I'm wondering about whether Bt stem injections are useful as an SVB damage preventative. Perhaps a stupid question, so bear with me. My understanding of the usual strategy is that you wait until you see the frass, and then squirt Bt into the hole to kill the bugger. But why not just fill the vines with Bt solution? Yes, that's maybe a lot of fluid, but the Bt is cheap. Very diluted. I can make tens of gallons for a few bucks. Instead of inspecting all the vines carefully every day or two, this way, I figure I'd just pump 'em up say, every week. I've never done Bt injection, as I like row covers, but row covers are hard to do for non-vining cucurbits, like zukes. How many gallons (ounces?) of Bt does it take to fill up a zuke plant? How long does the fluid stay in the stems? Do they leak?

I feel your pain! Or should I say, I'm anticipating feeling your pain! We bought a ride-on mower last week when the push finally gave up the ghost. Our reasoning was that our sons, now teens, wouldn't be around forever to cut the grass, and riding a tractor is better than a push mower for the golden years. Well,,,,,,,,,,, the first time the younger son (nearly 16) cut the grass with the tractor he only knocked over one potted plant in cutting a corner around a raised bed. The older (nearly 18) did fine, but he was being extra careful. I'm nervous for the time in the not-to-distant-future when they stop being careful and just plow over anything in their way, including the butterfly bushes. I keep telling myself that they never complain about yard chores, so I should just shut up and replant when something happens. And they won't be living with us forever. And that I need to fence off everything. Maybe using interstate lane dividers.

Hi Bruce, Welcome to the forum. We have a great time here and all of us learn a great deal from one another. It's quite simple really. In a hill, you start with 4 to 6 sprouts, let's say, and they all are competing with one another for water and nutrients. As you thin the plants and keep only the 3 plants...and then thin to 2, they still are competing for whatever their roots can pull up out of the soil. Since you leave 2 plants in a hill, the competition for nutrients and water never really stops so the two plants will tend to be ever so slightly less productive than a single plant on one hill would be. When you plant single plants in single rows, they do not have to compete with any other plant from Day 1, and really they do not have to compete for a long time.....not until their massive roots are competing with the massive roots from the next closest plants. However, because Squash Vine Borers are so good at taking out plants, it is smart to plant 2 plants together using your in-row spacing so that you'll end up with at least 1. When I do in-row spacing (which I did this year), I don't remove the second plant until I have blooms forming. As far as whether to plant on hills or not, in our climate it is mostly a matter of soil drainage that should drive your decision. --If you have well-drained soil, you should get equal production from plants on hills or in rows. --If you have heavy, slow-draining clay soil, you'll likely get better growth and production from plants on hills, assuming you loosened up the hilled-up soil and amended it with compost or other organic material. Even if the soil is not improved, though, you'll still get better drainage from a hill. In colder climates than ours where the soil stays very cold much later in the spring, the gardeners "need" to hill up the soil because it will warm up faster and that helps get their plants off to a good start. They also usually cover the garden beds with black plastic several weeks before their plant-out date in order to warm up soil, and also start seeds inside and transplant out, so they can start with 2 to 3 week transplants and get "ahead" that way too. In general, gardeners in colder parts of the country have temperature issues in the spring and fall that make it difficult to ripen squash and melons that have long days-to-maturity. For example, if you're in a zone where the last spring freeze falls around Memorial Day, and the first autumn freeze occurs in September, you have to push your melons and squash hard to get edible melons and squash from them. So, planting on a raised mound (hill) gives you slightly warmer soil and that gets you earlier sprouts. I've grown melons and squash both ways. I tended to use hills when my current garden was "young" and the soil (which started out as thick, dense Red River clay) was not as well-amended and, therefore, drained more slowly. Now that we're in our 11th year here, the top 8-10" of our formerly red clay soil is a brown loamy soil that does drain well, so I tend to go with in-row planting. And, I haven't even addressed what I'd do if I had very, very, very fast-draining sandy soil or sandy loam soil in a hot climate. If that were the case, I'd probably do waffle beds to help retain water and reduce wind and slow down moisture loss. I hope that answered your question. With any veggie I grow, I tend to experiment with growing it several different ways, and then "permanently" use whichever method worked best for me. What works best for one person is not always what works best for other people----so much depends on your soil type and climate. Some people on this forum routinely get 50-60" of rain per year, and others are lucky to get 15-20", so we all have to adapt and do what works in our specific locations. Dawn

lol. Yeah, iridescent would be a better description. All of the ones I saw crawled. I tried stepping on one to catch it, but it was a resilient booger that kept running even after getting stepped on, so all I got was a tiny piece of it that came off. It was really colorful - shiny purple, green, and blue. Maybe a bit of yellow. It would've been pretty if they hadn't startled me so badly by running from the plant all of the sudden.