Tips and Tricks for Preventing Squash Bugs
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How to Get Rid of Squash Bugs
- Early detection is critical! You want to catch squash bugs before they grow into adults, or they become very difficult to get rid of completely.
- Pick bugs off the plant early. Fill a bucket with water and liquid dish soap and flick bugs into soapy water. Once the bugs are dead, it’s fine to dump the water anywhere.
- Pick egg masses off the plants in the morning and later in the day. You can also simply scrape the eggs off the leaves with a butter knife and let them fall onto the ground, where beetles will eat them. Eggs hatch in about ten days, so be sure to check for them on at least a weekly basis.
- Place a board or shingle in the garden at night (or pieces of newspaper). During the night, both adults and nymphs will congregate underneath the board. Squash between two hard surfaces in the morning and dispose of them.
- Keep checking your plants at least daily. If there are no more than a few vines infected, keep collecting and destroying the bugs and crushing the egg clusters that you find on the undersides of leaves.
- Remove plant debris during the growing season to reduce sites where squash bugs can hide.
Using pesticides
Insecticides are not effective in managing squash bugs once they are adults, so don’t bother trying.
In the event that you catch the squash wilting very early in the season and you catch this when eggs are hatching, then insecticide application is probably needed to manage it. See your local garden center or cooperative extension service for controls that are locally approved. The best time to apply pesticides is early morning or late at night (during minimum bee activity). Be sure to spray underneath the leaves, where most squash bugs are found.
It is not necessary to treat squash bugs found in the garden during late summer or fall.
How to Prevent Squash Bugs
- Prevention is key: In the fall, burn or compost old squash vines to rid your garden of any possible shelters for breeding and overwintering.
- Avoid thick layers of mulches like straw or hay that provide an environment that these bugs seem to love.
- Practice crop rotation.
- Consider keeping squash plants covered until blossoming begins. Remove the cover for pollination needs. There is typically only one generation of squash bugs per year, and you can avoid them by covering your plants for the first month of spring. You can also delay planting your squash until the early months of summer.
- Companion planting can be useful in repelling squash bugs. Try planting nasturtium and tansy around your plants that are commonly affected by squash bugs.
- Select varieties of squash that are resistant to the squash bug if you have a big problem. ‘Butternut,’ ‘Royal Acorn,’ and ‘Sweet Cheese’ varieties are all more resistant to squash bugs.
- Clean up cucurbits and other plant matter in the fall to reduce the number of overwintering sites.
Catherine Boeckmann
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try using pyrethrum, you can get it I think at either Low's or Menards. I am sure that you can find it on line to at any organic garden supply store. Pyrethrum is a derivative of chrysanthemums, and in the pyrethrum for is a nerve agent against the squash bug and kills it within minutes of contact, also works on the nymphs.
If you find that you have a bad infestation and can not keep up with the egg search you can buy nematodes, I am not sure o which one but you spray the leaves especially on the bottom, however this year the squash bugs were laying eggs everywhere even on neighboring plants, so I spray the nematodes everywhere once I start seeing squash bugs, but the nematodes destroy the eggs.
I had never even seen a squash bug in my backyard garden until this year when I saw a huge infestation on each of my 3 squash plants. After harvesting the last few zucchini, I dosed each plant with diatomaceous earth and turned each plant over and buried them all. No sign of any bugs since then. Will doing this kill them and deter them from coming back next spring?
Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that they won’t return next year, especially if you grow squash plants again (or if your neighbors do). Adults overwinter in dead leaves and other plant matter, so make sure that you clean up around your garden to remove and expose any good hiding place to the elements. If they do return next year, consider taking a year off from squash and growing veggies that are less desirable to them, like leafy greens or root vegetables.
The health dangers and risks associated with using commercial insecticides far outweigh the convenience of "getting rid" of bugs. I'll take my chances with bugs over getting cancer anyday.
healthyworld.org/sevin.html
I have a ton of these all over my spaghetti squash and zucchini. We have sprayed multiple times to no avail. Any suggestions on what else to do would be appreciated.
Nothing will help but manual removal of them. Also, get rid of the eggs. I have found that squishing them between my fingernails works, as does duct tape, rolled around your hand, sticky side out, to remove them from the plant.
A gardener friend told me to plant icicle radishes as soon in Spring as possible, in a circle large enough to plant squash/etc. in. Wait till the radishes bloom (let them 'go to seed') then or slightly after the first of June (we live in zone 7) plant your squash. By that time either the squash bugs will have moved on, died out for the season, or been repelled by the radishes allowed to bloom. I've tried this with some success. Have run into a few late hatching squash bugs, but in such a decreased number that I could easily trap them under boards and/or pick them off.
Gardeners seem to/tend to have a 'bragging rights' attitude toward who plants what the earliest or first. Forget it. Plant later...and the squash bugs, for the most part, will have gone to your earlier planting competitors!
They enter the plants at the base, put your bug killer there and use Sevin. My pal and I have used Sevin for over 40 years and we're still kickin'. Do NOT believe the bs propaganda that it is harmful to people and pets. It isn't. It only affects the "nasties", the bugs.
I checked my spaghetti squash the other day and had a bunch of small bugs on running around on the squash. They were and I assumed that they were young squash bugs. The squash was ready to be picked so I picked them and cut out the vines. My question is, does the presence of these bugs effect the edibility of the squash or other fruit that they may live on.
Short answer: No.
Neither does Sevin.
