This spring, my friend Leslie brought us some melon varieties to try from Seed Saver's Exchange. One of them was Collective Farm Woman, which sounded like something we had to grow. Unfortunately, we had something of a plague of spotted cucumber beetles last week, which maybe carried a virus or maybe just straight up killed the plants, but anyway, the collective farm woman and lots of the rest of our melons, cucumbers, and summer squash have been killed. We're trying a few things to deal with this. we'll likely be replanting, as well as considering growing less melon-type crops in the future. We also have been trying out the white row cover seen in the picture above, pyrethrum sprays, and some kaolinite spray which is supposed to coat the plant and in some manner stop them from getting hurt as bad. We'll see what works, or doesn't.