I Must Be Doing It Wrong

Every--and I mean every--gardening book says you must weed around your plants.  So, last night I diligently weeded and trimmed around the winter squash, and................

I think I lost one of the squash.  Either there is a right way to weed and I am just unaware of it, or the poor thing died from shock (which is highly probably given my almost total general lack of weeding)  Maybe I should warn the houseplants now that I might feed them in the near future.......?