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Before you plant anything that's tubers or leaves instead of fruit, get your soil checked for toxic stuff. Much of JC is a toxic dump, but fruit (including tomatoes, peppers etc) doesn't take it up very well so it's relatively safe.

We stick to things that are quick to gratify and where the garden to table time really makes it worth growing your own. Besides the usual veggies (which I grow in containers), best bang for the buck is table grapes since you can pick them from now till frost, and they never need watering since they easily get down to the water table. Raspberries and figs do very well too. Get some fig cuttings from a neighbor next spring. There's a local variant that is very hardy.

it was rather pathetic looking...and I figured there are two other plants to compensate. i'll try to take a look at the cukes tonight and see if i can salvage them. we just moved here, and last year was spent gutting the garden- this was the test year.... i'm thinking of planting lots of potatoes next year to try to improve the soil. how's the soil downtown?

Was the zuke already dead? If it was just infested you can slit the stem and kill them without killing the vine.

I've always failed to understand how people could ever grow the classic "more zucchini than anyone can eat", mine always eventually succumb to borers or mildew.

i had to pull out a zucchini, and my cucumbers might be under attack! i thought it was the heat we had this weekend, but upon reading more into vine borers that's what i've got...thanks for the heads up!

I just cut over a dozen vine borers out of my zucchini vines. Most were small enough that the damage was minor, but this is the worst I've seen in ages, and I grow a resistant variety.

Look for the orange piles of crap outside their holes.