Gardening isn’t going exactly as planned. We had a fantastic enthusiastic labour-intensive kickoff with lots of healthy seedlings going into well-prepared dirt. For the first few weeks things were growing well, our beans were about to fruit and our squash were flowering. And then suddenly with all the rain the pest population exploded and now nearly two thirds of our vegetable plants are gone. Not like nibbled, but completely stripped.

I was quick to blame the ants, because I dug up a few nests when I was preparing the dirt, but my ant powder’s done nothing and the rate they’re stripping my plants (they ate 12 new Zuchinni plants overnight) seems too high. I must have beetles or caterpillars or something.

They’ve stayed away from the tomatoes and peppers, but they love radishes (stripped three rows down to the roots), onions, zucchinis, squash, cucumbers and eggplants. All gone.

Our beans have fallen victim to the other pest, lurking Mr. Rabbit. There used to be leaves and flowers at the ends of all those twigs.

I’m kindof at the point where I just want to say “Screw It” and give up – it’s already getting too late in the season to start my seedlings over, and I’m not sure how much more money I want to invest in feeding the bugs in my garden, when I could just be buying zucchini at the grocery store.

Hopefully we’ll at least get a few tomatoes, and I’ll start researching pest control options for next year. *sigh*