Total Devastation

I went out in the garden today for the first time in a few days and came upon a horrible sight.  My zucchini, which was doing pretty well a few days ago, was lying crumbled in the garden. The culprit was an infestation of squash bugs.  The bugs are all over the spaghetti squash too but plant is a little larger and there is still a vine or so there.  Not for long though.  There are hundreds of those rotten bugs all over the place and short of setting fire to the whole thing I am at a loss as to what to do. 

This year has been a terrible year for me as a gardener.  I was so looking forward to a beautiful garden after putting in the raised beds, and spring was a great time with a wonderful harvest of lettuces and radishes, but as soon as the weather turned, my garden went downhill fast.  Being a fairly new gardener this is very disappointing to say the least.  I have had some things come up, but if I was planning to be self sufficient and totally grow my own food, I would be starving by now.  About the only thing that has gone okay so far is my herb garden but at this point I am not so sure.  

Well there is always next year.  I will rotate the crops next season and see if I can’t put some preventative measures in place to avoid this from happening again.  I did get some insecticidal soap and sprayed that around the plants, more as a way to stop anything further but I am not sure if that is going to work.  I will have to do some research to see if I can salvage the rest of the what I have.