I feel you. I've been battling them as well and they are horrid. I've placed some sticky paper traps around the base of my zukes and that does catch some. I've also been spraying with Neem oil. Mostly, I'm just squishing the eggs and the new hatch lings in this never ending battle. Next year, I'm seriously considering row cover. It's much harder to battle pests when your an organic gardener. My neighbors aren't having trouble with them. Of course they just spray everything with Sevin dust.

If we're talking about squash bugs and not cucumber beetles, I agree that squash bugs are a big pain for organic gardeners, though I certainly have never heard of them attaching tomatoes and sunflowers. I patrol my two kzucchini plants and my two butternut plants twice a week checking under every single leaf. It's painstaking and laborious, but I did get 20 gorgeous butternuts last year. And plenty of zukes. Also, I keep them under row covers until they start flowering. And laying a board under the leaves and checking it during the heat of the day often catches adults, which you can grab and kill.

I'm seeing striped cucumber beetles here in NH. Row cover got put on winter squash seedlings just in time, I hope. The beetles are mostly on zucchini seedlings. Thanks for the board idea.

They are definitely squash bugs! I have a pretty big garden and they started with the squash and zukes and have damaged quite a few tomatoes. I will try the row cover next year and do the best I can this year--with 50 tomato plants alone, it it taking hours a day to squash those nasty bugs! I finally gave up on the squash and zukes and will replant. I would use row cover this time but I have other plants in the area that are large.

With potato beetles, I got the knack of swatting them into a plastic coffee can of water. This was fasting then squishing. Good luck.

I put a piece of duct tape doubled over so the sticky side was up. I attached it to the end of a bamboo stake. Just dab the bug with it and it sticks. You can scrape it off into a can of soapy water. Tedious work, but it's organic.

Squash bugs will tend to congregate at the end of the season on the last remaining greenry of the squash family;. You can then smash them with your feet and kill off a lot of your problem....for the next year.

I know a friend of mine who had the same problem. Could not get rid of them so he contacted some company. Not sure how effective was it, but if you have a budget you can consider something similar

I would bet that "some company" sprayed something I wouldn't want on my ornamentals much less in my vegetable garden. And this thread has wobbled between cucumber beetles and squash bugs, two entirely different pests.

Do you all think the duct tape method would work for removing the egg masses from leaf undersides? I am having trouble hand picking without ripping up the leaves. Battling hard here in Richmond, VA as well. I had given up growing squash and zucchini due to squash bugs, before this year when I was forced by the "powers that be".

Squash bugs are horrible and such of a problem! I've been fighting them for years organically. I spend hours flooding the plants and picking off the bugs as they surface. It also works well to wet the ground a couple feet from the plants and lay down boards, the bugs gather under them and you can wipe them out pretty fast with a weed burner (once a plant is a goner a weed burner will kill a lot of the bugs). You can plant bait plants away from the garden and wait for them to be infested and burn it.

This year I didn't plant squash because I didn't want to mess with the bugs, they hit my cukes but not very bad, after picking a few times I haven't had much trouble. I am going to start putting squash in the high tunnel (getting one with EQIP grant this fall) to avoid them but it is a problem when they attack other plants.

Good luck, I feel your pain.

Once again, squash bugs are NOT, I repeat, NOT cucumber beetles and they do not attack cucumber plants. Please let's try to keep conversations straight. It's impossible to give (or get) accurate advice when two completely different garden pests are being confused.

The OP mentions tomatoes and sunflowers, too. If the same insect is infesting all of these plants, then the culprit is more likely to be stink bugs or leaf-footed bugs.

CUCUMBER BEETLES are colorful striped or spotted chewing insects. They eat leaves. SQUASH BUGS are quite different. LEAF-FOOTED BUGS are something different, again.

OP needs to take some pictures if an accurate ID is required. However, I recommend a coating of Surround , a kaolin clay product that acts as a physical shield to prevent pest feeding and egg laying. Surround can be applied now to prevent future problems with any (all) of the pests mentioned in this thread.

It's a product with an OMRI listing.

FIY, squash bugs will feed on cukes....not commonly, but it happens.

I know what squash bugs are (and cucumber beetles for that matter), they are the same bug as the link shows above and they will attack cucumber plants. I picked off 6 off of my plants this morning and smashed several clusters of eggs. I've been fighting squash bugs for 10yrs and they like squash the most but will go to other (similar vine) plants. If you have squash/pumpkins they will stay on those plants but if not (I do not this year) they will get desperate and go to other plants thus the cucumbers.

I have squash bugs this year on my cucumbers for the first time ever.

Ever tried insecticidal soap? It works for me. Has to be applied nearly every day and get it directly on the bugs. I use a spray bottle to apply it. It may not get them all but it sure helps.

The following was a first for me. I have a sunface hanging on the side of my house(brick) in the deck area. I happened to be out there watering some porch pots and saw something crawling on the bricks,it was a adult squash bug! I watched and more came out from the mouth of the sunface. They must have overwintered there. I have found them crawling out from under tree bark before, but never on the side of my house.

Flowergirl, that sounds more like the behavior of the Marmorated Stink Bug .

I'm just interested....but are you sure that they were squash bugs?

I am positive, believe me I've seen plenty of them in my 82 years.