The Death of an Institution - 6 Institutions, That Is

They found me. They always do. You can't hide from them. You can change your locations, till up your garden, move miles and miles away from anyone with anything resembling a garden, but if you plant, they will come. All you can do is stave off the attack. But you will loose. You always will.

Oh the humanity!! "All my pretty one? / Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? / What, all my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop?" The bones! Look at the bones!!! Ok, so the Macbeth bit is pushing it, and there are no bones, but still. Yuck (note whiny voice), I liked those plants. I suppose I can't be greedy with 20+ pounds of zucchini, but I'm still sad.

In case you haven't figured it out, the SOB's, oh, sorry, the SVB's (squash vine borers) got me. How in the world they found me I'll never know, but by the looks of it, they've been at it for quite a while. I didn't have to cut any of these plants open to view the carnage. What you see is how I found them.

Mixed feelings here. Yes, they were still producing fantastically, but they were all already tinged with powdery mildew and I was going to rip them out in a couple of weeks anyway when we went to California so I could start the fall garden when we returned. This just upped the time table a bit. I'm just fussy that those rotten SVB's dictated when it would happen.

Things are looking up, though. I found the zipper peas I was looking for at the local feed store. I think I can actually plant them in the spaces the zucchini vacated and still get them in on time. I know they vine pretty fiercely, but I'm going to try to do it without trellising them if I can.

It does look empty down there now, but I'm looking forward to the peas.

I went to the store to buy more compost to fill in some beds , and yes, I asked for help this time...the girl kept showing the boy who helped us "Mommy's boo-boo" which erased any pride comeback I might have had. I don't know if it came from the compost which is the most likely or in the bed itself, but I pulled up the most amazing, massive earthworm you've ever seen. I'm half positive it came from the compost bag as I've never seen hide nor hair of an earthworm of any sort around this place, but both kids saw it slither out and were so amazed they tripped over each other to go get the man to come see it.

I suppose everything has a silver lining, right?

The morning comes early. Dream of earthworms, not SVB nightmares.