Hi,
I wouldn't worry too much about the borer beetle. Zucchini grows and produces so fast by the time they can do much damage, you will be up to your eyes in zucchini.lol
6 plants?!!! I hope you have a large family.
:)Laura

Hi Laura-
WHEW:) You basically gave me hope that I might not only save my new addition, but by the time a borer would be interested, I might WELCOME it! I am actually looking forward to my first year of, "I have so much zucchini I'm giving it away!" Let's hope the summer weather holds so I can fulfil this dream!

Borers have been a big problem for me with certain types of winter squash. In fact, now I grow butternut almost exclusively because it's less susceptible, and I like it just fine. So if you ever decide to plant winter squash, do yourself a favor and look up which varieties are resistant... or just plant butternut!

Jayco- thanks for the tip. I wonder why they don't attack butternut the same way. Is it growing time? Did you have a problem w/regulat green zucchini and if yes, what was your solution?

We've never grown zucchini since my better half is irrationally prejudiced against it. Certain varieties of winter squash are more or less attractive to the borers: C. maxima and C. pepo varieties usually do worse; whereas C. moschata (which is what butternut is) do better. (Zucchini is C. pepo.) No idea why -- I guess the borers have their reasons!

You can google resistance to squash vine borer and you'll get lists of which types do best and worst.

Better half may remember baseball bat sized zucchini from gardens grown in his youth. Tell him you're growing a "mini zucchini" and then pick them young?

He likes zucchini enough to eat it maybe four times a year, and I want to use all the space for tomatoes, so we compromise by planting more tomatoes! Maybe when we expand the garden he'll go for the zukes. Personally I love them, but they're super-easy to find from local farms and cheap, so it's not causing too much of a rift in our marriage ;)

squash vine borers have totally destroyed my squash plants for several years now. this is the first year that i have gotten any squash at all and that is due to using homeopathy to strengthen the plants and make them resistant to those buggers. they are in my plants now and will take them down but the remedies gave the plants a heads up and worked about half the summer so at least i have gotten a few fruit this year.

for those who are averse to the baseball bat varieties, you can try these little round zucchini. they are very cute and lend themselves to stuffing very nicely.

I've been looking around on the Pumpkin, Squash, Gourd forum and there seems to be some consensus that the Tromboncino Rampicante, an Italian zuke, is virtually SVB-free.
Apparently it can be harvested very young and consumed as a summer squash, i.e. zucchini, or it can be left on the vine and allowed to become winter-squash-like with a harder rind, sort of like butternut.
Word to the wise, however: both the fruits and the vine get really, really huge, like baseball bat size with 40 foot vines.
I haven't tried Tromboncino yet, but definitely will do so next year. Adams in Newburgh carried the seed this spring. It's one of their Italian imports.

OK, I've been growing squash on a site that has made Zucchini and melons impossible because of squash borers since planting my first garden here, 20 years ago. The cucumber beetles also make cucumbers a short lived crop even when keeping covered until well into bloom.

I have a business of installing, and caring for home and estate orchards so I see a lot of kitchen gardens in our area when tending these orchards. Many sites don't have an issue with squash borers or cucumber beetles- probably because surrounding vegetation doesn't support them.

So plant what you want but if you run into trouble the only answer I've found is to find varieties that root from the vine as they grow- that's why butternut works as a winter squash. If you can't grow zuke- don't fret. Koosa squash is tastier in my opinion, can be used the same way and provides me with a long season of fruit because of its tendency to root from the vine.