Growing zucchini in Oregon took little more effort than tossing a few seeds over your shoulders and coming back in a month or two to harvest (and harvest, and harvest). Sure, a slug or two might eat your young plants, but if the zucchini plant outgrew the slugs, you were pretty much guaranteed more zucchini than you could possibly eat. It's not quite that easy here in Northeast Missouri. In fact, everything garden-wise is proving to be much less intuitive, and much more difficult than I imagined.  Pests can truly impede a home gardener's ability to grow certain food crops.  Growing summer and winter squash is made challenging by the presence of squash bugs, squash vine borers, and cucumber … [Read more...]