Hello everyone, I am new to these boards but thought I would try to get some suggestions on my garden. I will warn you, this is going to be a long post as I am trying to figure out all my problems. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

My boyfriend and I, in an effort to be a little more "green," decided to start a garden this year. We have a relatively good knowledge of plants, but I mainly grow orchids and other ornamentals and haven't dabbled in the vegetables too much.

We were very eager and started our seeds indoors, as our Northern California weather has not been as warm as it usually is, and later learned many of the seeds we planted are better direct-sow instead of transplanting. So that was our first mistake. We are growing zucchini, green beans, lemon cucumbers, roma tomatoes, and a few other plants that seem to be growing very well. Probably our second mistake was starting with so many varieties our first shot!

My issue is mainly with the zucchini, then the beans, and least of all the cucumbers. They are currently in peat pots, most likely our third mistake, since they have been in the peat pots for longer than we had planned. We finally got the beans and cucumber into their permanent home, and the zucchini are supposed to be planted today or tomorrow, but I am slightly apprehensive of going to all the effort if my zucchini are suffering and not going to make it.

So with that preface, I will share some photos of what we have going on since just describing the problems may not be enough to come to a conclusion.

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I discovered this today on one of my zucchinis when I was doing the routine "plant check-up" and so far the only possible explanation I can find is vine borers. However, there is no "sawdust" looking excrement that I can find, anywhere, and it doesn't appear to be rotting or anything like that, it's just a hole. Looking into a hollow stem. I do have the plants staked a little, as one my beans snapped in half when we were having some strong winds (which has been occurring quite often, to my dismay)- could the hole just be from the tie rubbing the stem? Any suggestions?


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This picture shows one of my baby zucchini (the one poking out towards the left side of the frame), which started off great, but has since yellowed and stopped growing. Is this a side effect of not having enough growth room, or could this be a deficiency? We have been giving our plants Earth Juice Grow, along with Earth Juice MicroBlast, and recently started giving things Bloom when they developed flowers. However, and I neglected to mention this earlier, we have also noticed that we have a decently-bad case of thrips. They were covering our zuch flowers before, and we have since started spraying with Safer Soap Insect Killer, which has controlled them to some degree, but they are still present in much smaller numbers. I did notice when they were in their prime that the clusters of new growth at the main stem would slightly brown and die off, and I assume this is from the thrip damage. Maybe they got to this fruit before it started developing all the way?


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The leaves also have this white "mottling" to them; it isn't anything textural on the outside of the leaf (as I would assume mold or mildew would be), it just appears to be discoloration. Is this normal, or could this be a deficiency or signs of insect damage as well?


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This photo shows the "browning" of the new growth I described earlier; which I assume to be thrip damage, but anyone feel otherwise?


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Now, onto the beans. The leaves have been exhibiting this brownish/reddish veining, sometimes on the top surface, sometimes on the bottom surface, sometimes on both. Occasionally the coloring will travel down the stem slightly as well.


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These pictures just show more of the discoloration; the second picture also shows some of the newer leaves that were curled up and browning before they even fully developed. But there's still little beans forming! So exciting even when there's so many things I feel are going wrong!


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This picture shows the bugs that I am pretty sure are thrips. They mainly are on the flowers, not so much the leaves, but they are pretty quick movers for how little they are so I don't know how much of the plant they cover throughout the day. Just in the time I took these pictures, I found five or so on my camera as they seem to be attracted to colorful objects. Whenever I go outside in certain color shirts, I find them all over my sleeves! They seem to bite a little when they are on skin, too. I have felt little pinches when they are on me.


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Last picture, I promise! This is one of my lemon cucumbers. Notice the browning around the edges of the leaves? The cucumbers also show the browning of the new growth clusters. It isn't super easy to see in this picture, but the little furry clump in the center is one of the new leaves, and it has brown on some of the edges.


For those of you who made it all the way through this post, thank you so much for your time and consideration! We have been scratching our heads and scouring the internet and my gardening books to make our plants grow healthier, but I keep coming up short. Any suggestions/tips/hints would be wonderful, and thank you again for your help!