Squash the Squash Bugs

Seriously damaging pests. Seriously squish them before they get a foot hold!

I abruptyly encountered squash bugs for the first time when I came home from a 2 week hiatus from my home garden. My beautiful squash were all wilted over, yellowing, and SICK. As I drove up and saw them I didn't take a suit case out of the car, I ran, literally, to the garden to have a look see.

If you have ever had a squash bug infestation, you know what I mean when I say that there were quite literally hundreds of the ugly little creatons crawling on every other inch of my 12 four foot high (or were) yellow crook neck squash and zucchini plants.

Cucurbits are the most frequented and preferred food choice of these voracious eaters, although I have found them running amuck on potato plants. Their absolute favorite in my garden is hands down zucchini and yellow squash. I found them all over cantelope last year after they had completely devoured the squash, but they didn't seem to do much damage to speak of. I think they were just biding their time toward the end of the summer so they could hide until the next year.

This year, I planted early. Not the best idea I've ever had, but the weather was so fabulous! Did not use a row cover, as I only planted four plants in completely separate locations in the garden. As I suspected, the squash bugs found the zucchini closest to where the outbreak was last year first. It took about two weeks for them to find the others.

This summer (2011) I haven't treated them at all. I have hand picked every single bug, squished every single egg, and smashed every little nymph I could find. I did the same with potato bugs. I found reasonable success with the potato bugs, but the squash bugs took out two of my zucchini even with picking them off every other day or so.

Truth be told, I think it was the squash vine borer that actually killed the plants. I never found the actual caterpillar. After slicing open the main trunk of the plant, I burned it. I had seen the moth that is responsible for this caterpillar. I found a great image for the life cycle of this pest at Forestry Images... (click to enlarge)

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