Cucumber beetles [first wave] often first show up when cucurbit seedlings are very small. [Always be on watch for this]. These can be deadly in a day or two to the small seedlings. Sevin will protect them until it rains very much. Whether your plants are saveable is a guess. Some probanly will survive if not earen up too badly. The beetles will feed and then lay eggs in the soil around the seedlings. The larva will eat on roots. A second generation of beetles may not show up for a while.

Thank you very much for all the helpful replies and information. It is truly appreciated. We have a lot of space in our yard, so I'm going to get some vegetable plants for the main bed, along with planting a few seeds. I am dedicating an entire side bed for seeds, so we'll just put in what we have and observe it with a spirit of experimentation. Herbs! Why didn't I think of herbs? Thank you for that suggestion. Definitely going to start some basil from seed. Also going to add cucumbers and corn. The kids would love it if they came up and produced fruit... :-) We'll do the same for flowers too, then. Get some from the nursery and sow some seeds too. We planted some tall sunflowers in a circle today, to hopefully end up with a sunflower tent/teepee type thing, and some dwarf ones which will be more in the kids' line of sight. As a bonus, we were visited by a hummingbird on an already-established salvia while we gardened. My 3 year old was thrilled and the 5 year old was sad to miss it because she was at school. The one year old was very excited, but only wanted to try touching/holding it, of course :-) Gardening with kids is challenging, but so very satisfying and wonderful! Thank you for helping and guiding us on our journey as the littles and I strive to learn together.

Hi and welcome! First of all, we've *all* had a first garden. Gardening is a labor of love. Like relationships with people, in your garden you'll have good times and tough times. If you watch and learn from your plants, you'll have more good times. :-) One of the beauties of gardening is that you never stop learning. There are lots of gardeners who know far more than I do, and even they are still learning. So never be embarrassed to ask for advice! One thing that most every new gardener has to learn is to plan for the mature size of the plants. It's hard to imagine a tiny seed growing into a plant taller than you or a vine 15' long in one growing season, but it happens! 3. Tangerine Pimiento Sweet Pepper - Yes, you should thin them now to a 12" minimum spacing. They won't be able to produce peppers while they are competing with each other for water, sun, and nutrients. Don't pull since they are so close together - you might damage the roots of the plants you want to keep. Instead, thin by snipping off the stems of unwanted plants just above the ground. Keep the biggest and healthiest-looking plants. 4. Tomatoes - You should thin these, too. Tomatoes need at least 2'-3' between them, because if they are healthy, most types will grow into BIG plants. You also need to figure out what you're going to do about support (stakes, cages, trellis), or if you're going to let them sprawl. If you're going to let them sprawl, they need even more ground space. If you are going to use supports, you should install them as soon as you can after thinning the tomatoes. Pinching early tomato flowers is one of those things gardeners argue about. Most commonly, the advice is that you should pinch flowers off small plants that are still in cell packs or small pots; once the plants are settled in the ground (or a large container) you don't need to pinch any more. Since yours are in the ground and several inches tall, I don't think you need to pinch. 11. - 15. Heirloom tomatoes & peppers: Sounds like a nice selection! See above for spacing. If your heirloom tomatoes are planted too close together, now is the time to move them. Tomatoes tolerate transplanting well, especially if you bury them deeper when you transplant. Earthboxes or other self-watering containers are especially good for peppers. If peppers undergo water stress they make fewer and smaller fruit; self-watering containers keep a constant moisture level. (Large sweet peppers are pickier than small, hot types.) If you use an Earthbox, four to six - no more than six - peppers per Earthbox work beautifully. 4-6 little pepper plants may look lost in an Earthbox now, but they will fill it completely in a couple of months, trust me. If your heirloom peppers are too close, maybe you could get another Earthbox or other SWC for some of them? 19. Weeds: Unfortunately, you will need to keep up with the weeds. They are small now, but they'll overrun your garden later and out-compete your vegetables for sunlight, water, and nutrients. You can pull or hoe the weeds - be careful with the hoe around your veggies, but a hoe is definitely much faster than hand-pulling for clearing paths between rows. I do everything possible to avoid weeding, because it is my least-favorite garden activity (especially in July and August!). A deep mulch around your veggies is the way to go. Many weed seeds need light to sprout, and a thick layer of mulch blocks the light. It also holds in moisture so you don't have to water so much. Even with a thick mulch, you'll need to weed some, but the mulch will make a huge difference. Mulch also helps keep dirt from splashing onto the plants, which is important for tomatoes and melons. The most troublesome weeds are grasses and other weeds that spread underground or resprout from the root, because they will come right up through the mulch. Your best option is pulling them immediately, every time they resprout. If you are diligent, you can eventually exhaust them. (They have to expend energy to resprout; if you pull them before they have time to recover that energy from the sun, eventually they get too weak to sprout again.) For paths/walkways, put down several layers of newspaper or a layer of cardboard (e.g., old shipping boxes) and then mulch on top of that. The paper or cardboard is really hard for weeds to push through, and can block some - not all - of the grasses and root-spreading weeds, too. Don't put it right up to your veggies, though, because sheets of newspaper or cardboard block some of the rainfall. Good luck with your new garden!

You are not to late at all for your summer vegetable crops. You can choose to start them indoors, or you can visit the winter sowing forum and start them outdoors. Look into both, see what you prefer. Or experiment! It may not be too late for some types of cabbage, what type did you get and on the seed packet, how many days does it say to maturity?