In my area, (central New York), the critter that lays the eggs on the zukes, stops laying eggs after June 17th, (or so I've read). I plant my zuke seeds around June 10th and don't seem to have this problem anymore. Ummm, I don't know about that... I killed two SVB moths last week... and a third one flew off after being blasted by a hard stream from the pump sprayer... all 3 were within about 15 minutes timeframe. If I sit in a chair in front of my garage, maybe 10ft from my pumpkin plant, I usually see one land somewhere between noon and 2pm. I have the pump sprayer ready. I sneak up on them, getting as closer as I can, blast them, they fly off to another leaf, blast them, try to knock them out, then find a way thru all the 2ft tall leaves & vines and look for them before they gain their senses and step on them and grind them into the ground...phew, sorry for being so violently decriptive! lol. ...but I've had some still moving after stepping on them in grass & weeds... you really need to give that "firmly planted ball of the foot twisting motion", 3 or 4 times! lol. You can also whack them with a flyswatter, but be prepared to do it more than once! Mark

Followup post. I mixed one part fresh rabbit manure with two parts clay soil and used this mixture in my planting holes for my Costata Romanesque Zucchini and Kabocha squash. All plants are doing wonderfully and are really big and healthy looking, and the Zucchini already has blossoms on it and I see some squash forming. I made it even richer by sprinkling some mealworm castings on the planting holes and then covered the ground with bark to keep any fruit that form from touching the manure. I also planted some more squash using fresh horse manure instead of rabbit manure and mixed it with clay and those plants are doing fine too. So much for the claim that fresh manure will burn the roots. Maybe because I diluted the manure with clay soil, but my plants are all growing vigorously and look extremely healthy.

Anna - As I am harvesting some crops I am also amending the soil. What I do is put a combination of dry molasses, neem cake (only sometimes) like 1 time per year, when I have I also put coffee grounds, pine bark fines, lime, black cow manure and fertilizer (I like the palm fertilizer because I can use it for the trees also) and mix it all in. Water and let it sit for a few days, after that is ready to plant. Next week I will be planting summer squash; costata, butterstick and scallop. Cucumbers one oriental, one regular and one small. Will be planting pole beans also. Those are going in for sure and I am also thinking to put the gaucho melon that did nothing in the spring, maybe a baby delica since it was so loved by the family, is early too and maybe corn? I will have to check space available first. I have to plan well since my main interest will be cool crops for salads. Thank you Tom - Today we made scones with the delica squash, they were good! And yes Tom, you have a good memory! the second picture is the east side of the house, in that small space I have a bottle brush, jamaican papaya, atemoya, peppers, chives, rosemary, basil, a cocktail plum, the roses and in the middle a thornless boysenberry. Remember the area around the bananas? it is all planted now and I have sweet potatoes like there is no tomorrow, even the Starbucks lady got some, after they all have been harvested, it will be a new area for planting. And slowly I am taking as much grass as I can to make room for new plantings or pots. You have to try and make it for the next time we have a gardeners get together, sometime when is cooler will be nice :) Silvia Here is a link that might be useful: baby delica

George, I bet you're right, but I hate going out on a limb like that. Merton, I thought maybe I could find a comparison of the cucurbita seeds that would help you, so I checked my copy of Suzanne Ashworth's book SEED TO SEED: SEED SAVING AND GROWING TECHNIQUES FOR VEGETABLE GARDENERS and here is how she describes them: Cucurbita maxima: Thick seeds that are white or tan or brown with cream colored margins and thin cellophane coatings. (As George pointed out, your Lakota is a maxima so should fit this description.) C. moschata seeds are small, oblong and beige with a dark beige margin. (Your butternut is a moschata so one of your two solid tan types of seed ought to match this description.) C. pepo seeds are cream-colored and each has a white margin. Your acorn squash is a pepo so its seed should match this description. The problem is that your spaghetti squash is a pepo also, so its' seeds ought to match this description too. C. agyrosperma (formerly mixta) seeds would be the easiest to identify because they usually have small cracks in them. (They are described as white or tan with a pale margin and cracks in the skin coat on the flat sides of the skins which are covered with a thin cellophane covering.) None of the squash in your packet are agyrosperma types though. If you have specific variety names for your spaghetti, butternut, acorn and Lakota squashes, you probably could google and find descriptions of each squash, including the approximate size of the mature squash and that size might help you figure out which of your pepo seeds is which. Or, you might e-mail the seed company and see if they can tell you, by description only, which seed is which variety. Dawn