garden infested with squash bugs....

This year was my first time doing a garden. We planted a 3 sisters garden (corn, pinto beans, squash), watermelon, strawberries, cucumbers, zucchini and green beans.

Everything was doing great until it wasn't. Anything not in the squash family looks great! I've been fighting squash bugs most of the summer and thought I had been doing okay until today. There was an EXPLOSION. They are all over the watermelons, cucumbers, and on every. single. squash plant. All my squash and zucchini are dying. I must have completely missed a cluster of eggs and given them the opportunity to go nuts.

So... what do I do now?! Do I just set the whole thing on fire and hope for better luck next year? 😭 I'm trying to understand their lifecycle and I don't want to give them the chance to overwinter. We are moving the garden to the opposite side of the property next year but I'd still like to get rid of these nasty bugs - ideally without hurting the environment for our pollinators.

Or with the amount what are the odds some kind of predator moves in and starts killing them? There are lots of spiders in the garden but there are at least 50 squash bugs if not more... I'm at such a loss.

Hi Hannah,
Don't give up hope. I don't have experience with squash bugs... up here it is the potato beetles that kill our gardens.

I'm sure one of our southern Permies will be able to let you know how they deal with this.  

My suggestion would be to pick the bugs and nymphs off by hand and drop in a pail of water.

Next look under the leaves for eggs and get rid of those leaves with eggs or remove the eggs with duct tape...

It is not easy though with persistence it can be done.

Thank you Anne. That was part of my strategy before but with this complete explosion of bugs I'm not sure I can keep up.
Normally I have more energy to tackle things like this but I'm battling some pretty bad first trimester fatigue, and my limited energy is mainly going toward cooking/home maintenance/taking care of my big kids.

I wasn't sure if there was anything I can do to encourage natural predators. Or if there's anything I need to do end of season. I'm assuming pull up and get rid of the affected plants.

Oh good, you have a really long growing season. First, how big is your garden? I'm giggling and remembering the year we had hundreds of the devil's.

On Permies, somewhere, is a post suggesting to plant a trap crop of squash. If you choose this route I would do this in your current garden location. Once the bugs show up, set the trap on fire! Bwahahaha! Then plant in your new garden.

In my garden, I used a neem oil spray. I had to do it on a schedule, or the bugs would get ahead of me. Every 4 or 5 days maybe? Reapply after each rain, starting the schedule over. Oh, and do any spraying after the intense sun is lowering in the sky. The sunlight can be magnified by the tiny droplets and burn the leaves. I waited till the sun was behind the western tree line. Reather than buying a ready made spray off the shelf, I buy a quart of pure neem oil online and make my own. Much cheaper that way.

Now though, I have stopped planting any squash that is not resistant to squash bugs and squash vine borders. That means nothing in the Pepo genus. Bye bye zucchini. Hello tromboncino.

Squash that do well for me... Tromboncino, Seminole squash, and Joseph Lofthouse moschatta landrace. Cucuzzi does good too, though it is a edible gourd. These are all plants with long vining habits. Great for trellises, and better on the ground, because they root at the nodes. More resilience from any damage.

Here's my tromboncino, with squash bug damage, chugging along with no help from me.

It's been a bad year for me too. I have squash in three different gardens and all three are getting attacked. One is a complete loss. Just today I was out early in the morning and hundreds of them were gathered on top the leaves warming up. Since the plants are dead and dying I just stomped them. I think I will have to take a year off and not plant squash next year.

I picked them off diligently for weeks but got behind when work intervened, now they are out of control.

Kabocha which is a pepo so more tasty to them.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Oh good, you have a really long growing season. First, how big is your garden? I'm giggling and remembering the year we had hundreds of the devil's.

On Permies, somewhere, is a post suggesting to plant a trap crop of squash. If you choose this route I would do this in your current garden location. Once the bugs show up, set the trap on fire! Bwahahaha! Then plant in your new garden.

In my garden, I used a neem oil spray. I had to do it on a schedule, or the bugs would get ahead of me. Every 4 or 5 days maybe? Reapply after each rain, starting the schedule over. Oh, and do any spraying after the intense sun is lowering in the sky. The sunlight can be magnified by the tiny droplets and burn the leaves. I waited till the sun was behind the western tree line. Reather than buying a ready made spray off the shelf, I buy a quart of pure neem oil online and make my own. Much cheaper that way.

Now though, I have stopped planting any squash that is not resistant to squash bugs and squash vine borders. That means nothing in the Pepo genus. Bye bye zucchini. Hello tromboncino.

Squash that do well for me... Tromboncino, Seminole squash, and Joseph Lofthouse moschatta landrace. Cucuzzi does good too, though it is a edible gourd. These are all plants with long vining habits. Great for trellises, and better on the ground, because they root at the nodes. More resilience from any damage.

Here are my tromboncino, with squash bug damage, chugging along with no help from me.

Thank you Joylynn! This is very helpful. I'm going to look into the squash you've listed and see about doing a trap row next season!

My garden this year isn't very big, I'd say maybe 10x20 and that's probably overestimating a bit. The majority of the garden is very overgrown watermelon vines (I didn't take into account how big they were going to get when I was planting!)

Thom Bri wrote:It's been a bad year for me too. I have squash in three different gardens and all three are getting attacked. One is a complete loss. Just today I was out early in the morning and hundreds of them were gathered on top the leaves warming up. Since the plants are dead and dying I just stomped them. I think I will have to take a year off and not plant squash next year.

I picked them off diligently for weeks but got behind when work intervened, now they are out of control.

Kabocha which is a pepo so more tasty to them.

Ugh, maybe it's just one of those years! Sorry you're dealing with the same. They are such pesky bugs.

You should just get these seeds. Problem solved.

https://permies.com/t/120/57948/thought-permaculture-insect-control-failed

Now that I've had some time to calm down from my despair over the squash bugs, I'm realizing maybe I can turn this into a positive. If I can't get rid of all the bugs by hand right now, why not experiment ?

I've come across forums suggesting different, seemingly less common techniques. I had just planted new zucchini and squash before the invasion and I have lots of little sprouts. I think I might try a different method around each plant. Someone said they used coffee grounds and for whatever reason it repelled them. I think I'm going to try surrounding another plant with citrus peels, and another with crushed mint leaves. If anyone else has suggestions let me know, maybe I can implement that as well. I'll do my best to document and update as I can!

Also - interesting update I meant to post yesterday.

Good news first. My first plan of action was posting on permies for advice (or commiseration haha) and then prayer. Prayer for my garden to be full of squash bug predators. 😆 Should've started with some earnest prayer first! I went out to the garden and found the number of squash bugs GREATLY reduced. As in, only 3 adults and 1 nymph. I've typically had a lot of wasps in my garden but I noticed even more varieties of wasps than I've ever seen! I'm assuming they might have something to do with the reduction but we'll see if this continues.
I did squish the adults I saw and spray the nymph with soapy water. And I found one cluster of eggs that I got rid of.

But there is bad news. It looks like I have squash vine borers as well. So I pulled out the affected vines. Hopefully between the wasps, the additional squash I've planted, more praying, and my new pest control experiments something will work for those too!

Todays update. I saw 5 nymphs feasting on my remaining straight neck squash plant (from the first round of planting). I don't know how the poor plant has continued to survive, but if it manages to get at least one squash out I'm saving those seeds!

The nymphs were promptly drowned in soapy water. But everything else looked great today!

In an older permies post was advice to plant radishes around the squash plants. I plan to try it next spring.
The only thing I have found to prevent vine borers was chemicals I no longer wish to use.

That sounds so frustrating! Have you tried using soapy water to knock them down, or planting trap crops like nasturtium or sunflowers to lure them away?

Waste Nest wrote:That sounds so frustrating! Have you tried using soapy water to knock them down, or planting trap crops like nasturtium or sunflowers to lure them away?

Soapy water has worked for knocking them down so far! I didn't plant any trap crops this season, but it's on my list for next year.

Went out to the garden today and I didn't see any squash bugs! I did find a whole lot of lizards though.

The plants surrounded with coffee grounds are doing okay, but don't seem as healthy as they were before... maybe too much nitrogen? The ones surrounded by citrus peels are untouched and look great. The control plants (with nothing around them) have been munched on by something. And the ones surrounded by mint look the same as the control plants.