Up until three weeks ago I had four amazingly green bountifully productive zucchini. I loved them very much. I was not yet tired of eating them. First, we got aphids. I sprayed with soap water. I shrugged and thought that it would be alright. A week later the leaves are COVERED. I mean seriously, if you took a leaf and covered the back with honey and sprinkled cornmeal on it? That's my plants. Then last night I came to the horrible realization that the "one or two" squash nymphs I had seen . . . they were NOTHING. I have the little red larve. Some big black and brown bettle looking thing. And EACH leaf has about five to ten nymphs. My honey wants to just pull the plants out before the rest of the garden suffers. I watched about a billion ants last night carry around silverwings, aphids, little black bugs, and I don't know what else. The ants are happy. We already pulled two of the zucchs out and when we did ants came POURING out of the hole. Seriously thousands. Little red ants. Sigh. I'm so sad. It's my first garden, a trial run of sorts that I started when we were still building my raised beds. This is just a little patch, near a tree, that my mother-in-law had already tilled for us. I wanted to see what I could grow. Ironically EVERYTHING else in the garden is beautiful - even here in the desert. Is there anything I should try before pulling the zucchs? We've done a few weeks of soap - to no avail. I've put fish oil on the soil and epsom salt too.