We’re in the process on suppressing our grass in the front yard and turning it into more gardening space. I’ll be poking around your blog for inspiration.

Hi Justine, I had been squishing them by hand and thought I had done ok and then let it go for a week. By the time I looked at the plants they were already dying. Those little guys work fast! I’ve been saving a big tub of egg shells for the garden as well. I know liming will also provide calcium but I read that it really takes a year for it to work. I found more zuchini like that the other day but we are still getting lots of new healthy ones so hopefully it was a lack of pollen. My fridge drawer is filling up with them!!!

Are you the one who had the Tilth fundraiser in your garden? If so I still need to come over and visit!!!

I can’t tell how bad your aphid infestation is, but don’t forget you can just scrape them off by hand, or spray them off with water – or pick off the really infested leaves and dispose of them. It won’t eliminate but will helps keep them under control and the natural predators can do the rest. Also, I add crushed egg shells to areas I plan to plant squash and tomatoes, I can’t say if it really helps yet, but I’m hoping it will add calcium slowly to the soil to help with blossom end rot. I’ve had little bouts of it in the past but never enough to spoil the whole crop… (knocking on wood).

Happy Gardening! ~Justine

I use insecticidal soap (or even dish soap) in a sprayer for aphids.
I’ve also used BT before, but have also used diatemaceous earth.

You probably know this, but make sure to rotate your crops in your beds each year. The bugs and disease have an easier time finding the plants if they are in the same spot.

Rebecca, thanks for your kind words. I took the peas out over the weekend and am feeling better. It scares me to move them out front next year where I have so much other important things growing. I’m hoping those aphids won’t jump to other things. In the back they’ve jumped to the cardoons and I found some in the front on the zuchini already – which I’ve never seen before. I’ve sprayed them with water before but on squash it knocks the flowers off and I’ve literally watched them climb back up onto the plant after spraying. I guess I’ll stick with the soap since the lady bugs don’t seem to be keeping them under control yet again and the praying mantis either haven’t hatched or are hiding out somewhere.

I have always had the same problem with peas, even with the enation resistant varieties, so no help there. However, I have had some good luck with spraying the aphids off of plants with a strong jet of water.

With the zucchini, if you keep on having the rot problems, try taking the old flower off the little fruit right after the little fruit starts to grow. That has helped me with squash in the past – gives it more air, I think. Hopefully it was just a bad pollination, though.