Nickle, gardening is great when most of the 'work' is harvesting! Have a look at Dipel for your caterpillars - it contains a naturally ovcurring bacteria that kills ONLY caterpillars, which means all of the good bugs in your garden are not affected. It will not kill anything that eats the affected caterpillars, either.
We had a 'garden salad' last night - cucumber, capsicum, beetroot, basil and oregano and carrot, all from our garden, with just a few shop bought leaves thrown in. It's really hard to grow salad leaves in Perth in summer. my zucchini is very slow to take off this year. last year we were harvesting heaps by Christmas, this year it's still just a large seedling.

