This is my experience and I live in Virginia too. They can be awful.
I plant a black beauty zucchini no matter what- and I leave that one plant for the squash bugs, they love it and stay off my others for the most part. I even get a black beauty zucchini from it here and there...but I only plant it as a decoy. If you plant lemon squash they don't even go near that one. I don't know why, but it's not my favorite so I also plant other types too.
Then for SVB, you can transplant outdoors that way the plants are stronger when the bugs come. They can handle stress better. I don't do that really- I just plant a seed outside and keep covers on them until they are grown with flowers- then remove for pollination. (transplanting can effect a strong taproot- so in this case I would not save seed from transplanted plants.)
Then I keep vigilant looking for "sawdust" around the plant base. Once I see the vine borer- I slice it open vertically and remove the bug. I put dirt over the wound, water and give it fish emulsion. It comes back to life good enough.
The last thing I do is rotations of squash (zucchini types) I plant in 2 weeks outdoors. 3 weeks later I plant a new row, 3 weeks later a new row. Then rip out any zucchini plant thats not doing good and plant with something else.
For Winter squash types- No rotation- they need too long. I grow a lot of those each year and I do fine. Just vigilant checking for removal.
Good luck!
__________________
Lindsey
|