Pumpkins, Squash & Gourds Vegetable Gardening

@#$(%# squash bugs, and now spotted cuke beetles too? Need to rant.

6 years ago

I'm in an ever battle with squash bugs. Wasn't too bad this year though. Actively planted a butternut- have to check my notes, but it was a small fruit kind. Tatume grown vertically- cept for the one vine spot, which I cleaned and trimmed out of squash bugs as soon as they came up. I almost got the squash bugs in check.. but still.

But this summer as I was cleaning up stuff.. started noticing a yellow ladybug. Just one here or there. Then I started to clean up the Tatume and butternut vines and all of a sudden there were a lot more of the yellow ladybugs on my tomato plants and nasts... I assumed because that's where they jumped off to when I was cleaning out the squash.

Looked it up and the suckers are spotted cucumber beetles. Ugh.

Next year some of my newest raised beds in another area of the property over 150 feet away with structures and landscaping between the gardens I get to start anew with the pesky critters. I'm starting to think of setting up old gardens as bug trapping while protecting the snot out of the new area.. cuz dang it, I love squash as one of my top two fave home-grown food plants.

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Comments (5)

itsmce (zone 6b, Kansas)
6 years ago
If it's not one thing it's another, right?!?! Keep fighting the fight. Gardeners...the eternal optimists.
wayne_5 zone 6a Central Indiana
6 years ago
beesneeds, At the end of the season, the squash bugs will congregate on the last fruits and bits of green leaves. Then is the time to stomp them out.
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beesneeds
Original Author
6 years ago
heh, I take those congregations and drop them into a bucket of soapy water and seal them into a watery doom. Dang things are annoying.

I was just extra irritated to see those spotted cuke beetles on my squash plants- I'm not even growing cukes this year!
catherinet
6 years ago
Do you grow zucchini in your garden? I found that zucchini really attracts them the most.....then they would find my butternut squash. But....since I started growing my Waltham butternut squash up a swingset Icovered on one side with concrete reinforcing wire........and moved my zuchinni to the back yard, well away from the garden, I haven't had a single squash bug.......and I used to have tons. I haven't had any for 2 years now. (Knock on wood).
catherinet
6 years ago
P.S. (houzz won't let me edit my posts for some reason). I wanted to add that the only cucumber I can grow is County Fair. It lacks the bitter
gene....which is what the cucumber beetles are attracted to, and then
they give the plant wilt. I've been growing it for a couple decades,
otherwise I would never be able to have cucumbers. I never see a cucumber beetle anymore.