The return of my nemesis - Squash Vine Borer

When I was little, my dad always grew zucchini with no problems. Well, aside from the forgetting to pick it and winding up with baseball bat size clubs of squash that weren't much good for anything but making zucchini bread, no problems. Then maybe seven to ten years ago, our zucchini started dying halfway through the growing season, their stems seeming to be rotted through.

My dad assumed it was some sort of stem rot disease or fungus. It was frustrating, especially since it always grew well for us before this started.

So when I made my initial start gardening last year, I had four crookneck squash in pots. I remember noticing a cool looking orange-red and black moth flying around that I tried to photograph. I didn't think much of it beyond it being a cool looking moth.

So then one day I'm at the local nature center taking photos and I see one of these guys feeding, so I took some shots, and when I went home, google image searched "red and black moth Illinois" to see if I could find an ID. First image I opened was one, let the page load, and saw the name "SQUASH VINE BORER".

At this moment it occurred to me that my squash, which had been very productive up to this point, were not looking healthy. 

The squash vine borer lays its eggs on squash plants, and when they hatch, the caterpillars immediately bore into the hollow vine of the squash, where they happily eat away at your plant from the inside out. Eventually they do enough damage to cut off the plant from its roots. Often the stems appear to be rotted from the base.

You don't want these bastards near your squash plants

So all these years these are what's been killing my dad's zucchini. They killed all of my crookneck squash last year, and one of my dad's zucchini. Once they're in your plants there's not too much you can do. Any sprays of insecticides or caterpillar killers like spinosad or bt aren't going to do anything since those are applied outside your plants while these guys are inside. Some people do surgery, cutting the vines open to extract and dispatch the invaders. One other technique is to take some BT and use a syringe to inject it into the vines. I didn't have BT or a syringe, and I don't think my chances of cutting the plants without killing them was very high, so I just watched them wilt away and die, and then tossed the entire contents of the pot, dead plant and soil, in the garbage bin.
 
 I didn't take any shots of the damage last year, but here's some links to some photos I found on flickr--

SVB Damage
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34834855@N07/3816366508/

The caterpillars are hideous and grub like-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/camazine/2852452767/

 I saw my first SVB of this year last week. I've got four squash plants, along with a cucumber and a watermelon (not as commonly used as a host by SVBs, but can be).  I'm in full prevention mode. Weekly malathion spraying, and I bought BT and a kitchen syringe. I've heard some people recommend just injecting BT as a precaution. Haven't decided if I'm going to do so or not. I intend to prevail against this year, one way or another.