I had not done an inspection of my garden in several days and found an explosion of squash bugs today! I forgot about these nasty creatures! I had a portion of my vines covered due to the Phoenix heat.

It seems they don't like gourd plants at all (gourds have a tendacy to smell like vomit and seem to be immune to squash bugs) and luckily these bugs had not begun to devour my tomatoes. Due to the new dogs I have, I cannot let my chickens roam the garden.

As of recent I have been reading up on enzymes ... and I did a little digging on the various remedies for squash bugs and other methods of extermination this afternoon and came up with this:

In a blender combine:

as many of the bugs you can catch

leaves and flowers of gourd vines

1 Tb papain/gypsum mix (used in beermaking)

1 Tb charcoal

marigold heads

tagets oil (marigold)

pepermint oil

ginger oil

2 Tb borax

2 Tb grapeseed oil

molasses

water

(I happen to have these ingredients on-hand)

Pulverize and pour into a gallon container.

I added to the mix:

1/4 cup of neem oil (Green Light Rose Defense -- hydrophobic extract of neem oil)

** Neem oil generally is more of a deterent **

2 Tb. piperazine (used for de-worming chickens)

Added enough water to fill the container.

I strained about a cup into a regular spray bottle and filled it up with water. I went out to the garden loaded for action.

Boy, did this work on contact! Once I started to spray, the squash bugs fell off the vines! I ended up filling the spray bottle up four times to be able to hit most of the vines. (27'x 8' area of vines) I tried to get to the underside of the leaves and the ground underneath the vines the best I could.

It is up to you on whether you want to incorporate the piperazine into the mix. Many years back, I found that when I de-wormed my chickens, the fly count went down. I figured piperazine does have an effect on some types of insects besides parasites. (Piperazine is chemically similar to piperidine, a constituent of piperine in the black pepper plant.)

In about a week, I will know what effect this treatment has had on my vines. I ended up pulling all the fruit before treatment since they were being attacked too. For as many squash bugs I found, they would have sucked everything dry within the next week if I had not done anything for the problem.

I am hoping the brew gets even better since it looks like there is enzyme action going on in the container. The ground up insects will convert to enzymes that will eat through their bodies. Papain will also eat through certain types of protein. Borax is great to use on pests, but you have to be careful about using it on plants. In this diluted amount it should be okay. Molasses helps as a surfacant and helps with promoting enzyme action.

If anyone experiments with something similar, please post your results.