This thread is an offshoot from another thread where we have meandered from one sub-topic to another until we arrived at the issue of what to do about squash bugs.

If you grow squash and related plants, you know that squash bugs are very hard, if not impossible, to control. They are absolutely impossible to eliminate.

So, how do YOU control squash bugs and save your crops? Please share your strategies here.

I'll go first, and then wait to hear from y'all.

My, biggest problem is that I grow a LOT of squash and their relatives, and the more you grow....the more squash bugs you will have. I also mulch heavily to maintain soil moisture levels (um, not much of a problem this year!) and keep the soil cool (always an issue here in summer).

Squash bugs hide in the mulch at night. I assume they go down into it to hide from predators and also to stay cool while they sleep. The best way I have found to get them out of the mulch so I can kill them is to lay a board or shingle on the ground. At night, the bugs will crawl up under it. If I go out early in the day, around sunrise or shortly after, I can lift the board/shingle and kill the bugs. I like to pick them up and drop them into a bucket of soapy water so they will drown. Some people just step on them & squash them....but they leave a really AWFUL odor in your garden.

Other ways to combat squash bugs.

1. Plant varieties described as tolerant of or resistant to squash bugs. This is not my favorite method, but some people swear by it.

2. Grow a 'trap crop' of yellow straightneck or yellow crockneck squash near your "real crop". Squash bugs prefer these and will go to them first. Direct your efforts towards towards finding the bugs while they are on these plants.

3. Cover you plants with floating row covers. You should use the lighter-weight ones sold as insect barriers and not the heavier-weight ones sold to protect plants from cold temps. Row covers ONLY work over the long haul if you have them securely attached to the ground where squash bugs can't get up underneath them. I like to lay boards on top of the edges of the row covers. If you leave any gaps, the bugs will get in and the row covers would be of no help.

4. Use companion planting by planting herbs and flowers reputed to repel squash bugs. The closer the herbs and flowers are to your squash plants, the better. You can plant the companion plants underneath the squash as a 'living mulch' or plant in a row on all 4 sides of your squash rows. Companion plants said to help repel squash bugs include catnip, marigolds (the stinkier the better), tansy, nasturtiums (I grow a couple of hundred of these every year), tansy (a self-seeding perennial for me), and radishes (rat-tailed ones seem to work best).

5. Clean up all debris in the squash bed thoroughly. This is where I have trouble. I gladly remove and dispose of all the plant debris, including dead vines, foliage, and immature squash or pumpkins that froze before they matured. However, I HATE having to get rid of the mulch.

If you leave the squash mulch intact, it will shelter and overwinter squash bugs, giving them a big head start on your garden in the spring.

So, you have to till that mulch into the soil....and it helps to re-till it at least monthly all winter. This helps expose overwintering bugs and hopefully kill them.

Or, you can remove all the mulch and haul it off to a compost pile. Still, though, you need to turn it often. If I do this, I wet it down thoroughly, turn it often to speed decomposition, and cover it with black plastic to keep it hot and composting through the winter months. If you get the pile hot enough to compost, most if not all the bugs will die.

6. If squash bugs have appeared and are in your garden, find and kill every one you can. If you have a small bettery-operated or rechargeable hand-held vac, like a car vac, you can suck them up with it and then dispose of them.

7. You can sprinkle your plants and the ground around them and the mulch beneath them with food grade diatomacious earth.

8. Purchase and release beneficial insects that attack squash bugs, including tachinid flies and parasitic wasps.

9. Find the squash bug eggs on the undersides of the plant leaves. Remove them and destroy them before they can hatch. This is VERY important in breaking their life cycle.

For what it is worth, researchers at Iowa State University have found the best strategy to use, if you want to raise squash successfully, is to lay wet newspaper under hay (straw?) mulch to keep weeds down and use "tightly-secured insect barriers" (row covers) to keep out the bugs.

If y'all want, we can expand this conversation to include the archnemesis of all squash growers--the dreaded squash vine borers! Oh, and if we are on the topic of evil bugs, how about cucumber beetles?

Dawn