It's on (part 2)! Me vs squash vine borers - the preemptive strike

The battle with the elements continues here at charm city balcony garden and also at charm city community garden. Last year I lost my summer squash plant to vine borers, fortunately it was after I harvested a good number of delicious squashes. I even performed surgery on the bigger of the two plants I had. If I remember correctly, I got a couple more tiny squashes afterwards, but it never truly recovered. This year, I have 1 squash planted in the community garden and I also plan to have 1 for the container garden (which I have yet to start). When I transplanted the squash seedling to the community garden, I took a preventative measure that I read about online:

I wrapped nylon socks at the base of the squash plant. I wasn't sure if it was too early for this, but I don't think it will hurt the plant. The nylon can expand as the squash grows, my only concern is that the nylon will promote fungus and/or mold especially because it is so humid here.  I'll just be optimistic and feel good about being a prepared gardener!

Vine borer surgery aftercare

I've been checking my zucchini plants leaves for vine borer eggs. I am using a method I saw on gardenweb using tape and squishing them. I was initially using a little knife to scrape them off but I wanted to make sure they were destroyed.

Vine borer eggs...eek

Removing eggs with tape

I also noticed a cluster of eggs with little fly-looking thing. Of course I yelped and cut the leaf off and stomped on it. (I was in panic mode so I forgot to take a picture).  I'm pretty sure they were eggplant lace bugs. Here is one I found.

Eggplant lace bug

I've noticed little black circular dots on leafs which I think are the eggs (since this is where I found the cluster of the little lace bug).

I'm seeing so many insects I have never seen before. It seems the battle with insects is never-ending...

Warning! Nasty pictures...vine borers

I was cutting off some of the yellowing leaves on the zucchini plants. After I finished I went to pick up all the leaves and saw the most disgusting white grub.  It took me a while, about half the day, to realize this was not a good thing. I googled vine borer and saw a picture of an insect that I had seen a couple of times on the balcony. Before work, I checked the zucchini in the smaller container. Bad sign #1.

Near the bottom there was a saw-dust like pile right where the larvae most likely dug into the stem. I took the scissor and cut into the vine and found this:

and this:

EWWWWW! I was so disgusted I had severed the stem completely. I salvaged all the small zucchinis on the vine and threw the plant away. After work, I wanted to check the plant in the larger container. I slit the stem and found some damage but didn't find any larvae - it is possible that I just missed it. I tried to removed all the damaged stem and attempted to put it all back together.

I tied up the stem to close it up, wrapped the larger stem with a paper towel and buried the smaller stem under some fresh soil (after tying it up).

I'm just going to keep an eye on it and see if it survives the surgery. Maybe it is too late but I'll also try to start some seeds for the fall.