I Want to Try Something Else

[Ridgerunner]

the thing with squash bugs here is that i don't see a huge amount of damage from those. sure there might be a bite in something here or there but they don't seem to ruin enough of anything for me to do much about them.

Squash Bugs do not bite, they suck. They pierce the skin and suck juices out, which means pesticides on the surface of the plant don't bother them. Same as stink bugs which are close relatives. You have to get them with a contact pesticide, not one that they have to eat. They are hard to control with pesticides.

In some parts of the country people seem to not have much of a problem with squash bugs. When I was in Northwest Arkansas the numbers got so great they'd kill squash plants. Hoodat said when he lived across the border in Oklahoma he quit trying to grow squash because of squash bugs. Not squash vine borers, squash bugs. To make it worse squash bugs can transmit a wilting disease that can kill the plants.

In the south, squash vine borers have two life cycles each season. If you get far enough north they only have one. Some people further north can handle squash vine borers by timing the planting. Down here, nope. I tried.

 

[digitS']

You have to get them with a contact pesticide, not one that they have to eat.

This must be why Spinosad alone wasn't 100% effective. As a beetle killer it sure can be against Colorado potato beetles.

Beetles have tough exoskeletons and organic contact sprays can kill soft bodied bugs but ... The squash plants had some relief from the one-two punch of Spinosad and Pyrethrum the times I've used it but the stink or squash or cucumber beetles only present a serious problem now and then.

Steve

 

[baymule]

And WHERE do those squash bugs come from? I KNOW no one in miles of me has a garden, we have driven the roads and never see one. (What a waste, all this land and no garden) My first garden year, the durned bugs showed up. What? Did they come out of the seed packets or something?

 

[flowerbug]

they must be around in other plants too is all i can say because we're a ways from the neighbors too along with it mostly being disturbed/farmed land around us. we don't bring in live squash plants and for many years we never had cucumbers to start with. still they are here and have always been here.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I tried not planting squash a couple of times and they still showed up in numbers when I did plant. This is a theory, I don't know, but I suspect they also live and multiply on weeds not in the garden. That's why you can remove those eggs every day and still get overwhelmed.

 

[seedcorn]

Problem is bugs don’t eat garden produce only. BUT, if you plant it, they will come, Ray......

 

[Redd Tornado]

I managed to get zucchini and yellow squash last spring before the SVB showed up. They arrive here in May, so I planted in sliced up trash barrels (I made rings), in February under plastic covers I made from painting tarps and cattle fencing. It worked pretty well. I actually got zucchini for the first time in 4 years.

I am in the early planning stages of building a screen house apparatus over my raised beds. My DH thinks I am nuts. But he is helping. This is to defeat stink bugs, which suck the life out of everything.

I don't mulch because of slugs and snails large enough to pull Dr. Doolittle's wagon. I plant tightly, and run the hoe between the plants weekly in the spring.

I stopped trying to grow anything between June 1 and August 31. The heat stops production and what ever is left feeds the bugs. I let the chickens in the garden. They eat everything except sting bugs.

 

[Dirtmechanic]

I spray the soil and have pretty good luck. Last year I grew yellow squash in between my tomatoes. A lot of bugs do not like tomatoes. The other thing was the tomato squash plants outgrew the row squash. No doubt because I prepared deep holes for the toms with a late stage fertilizer kicker or something like that. I really need a notebook.

 

[baymule]

I spray the soil and have pretty good luck. Last year I grew yellow squash in between my tomatoes. A lot of bugs do not like tomatoes. The other thing was the tomato squash plants outgrew the row squash. No doubt because I prepared deep holes for the toms with a late stage fertilizer kicker or something like that. I really need a notebook.

I wonder if picking tomato leaves, running them through a blender and making a spray would work.

 

[baymule]

I stopped trying to grow anything between June 1 and August 31. The heat stops production and what ever is left feeds the bugs. I let the chickens in the garden. They eat everything except sting bugs.

I lose enthusiasm in July and August, the weeds gallop away and grow higher than my head. I let the sheep in to eat it down. LOL