Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => GARDENING AROUND THE HOUSE => Topic started by: watercarving on June 09, 2012, 09:25:05 pm
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I hate them, I hate them, I hate them. How do I get rid of squash bugs?
Squash bugs and garbanzo bean flour. (http://www.johncall.com/2012/06/squash-bugs-and-garbanzo-bean-flour.html)
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In the past I have used oils and sevin and left the alone. I really don't know what the best answer is. When you do spray, do it right at dark so the bees will not get into it. Sevin does work some if you can get it on the plants for a few days before the summer rains wash it off.
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And it is suppose to rain all this week also.
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I pick them by hand. Every day I go out and look under the leaves for egg clusters. When I find a cluster I pinch the whole cluster out of the leaf. Over the season the leaves can get pretty holey, but it's a very effective control.
The adults like to be under dead leaves or other things lying on the ground, so a board under the plants works to 'collect' them. Check it every day and kill them.
That's the only effective way of getting rid of the blasted things that I've found. I really hate those buggers.
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I hate them, I hate them, I hate them. How do I get rid of squash bugs?
Ditto.
Last year I saw some eggs on the leaf of a squash plant, didn't know what they were. Thought it was cool. So not cool. This year I moved my garden and I'm looking for those buggers.
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I just posted on this too... wrong place. I'm glad I found this post. I started rotating my garden because of them. That helps some. I've tried dawn soap and water in a spray bottle, kills the little ones almost immediately. It makes the adults crawl up the plant (or off) where you can see and pick them, I haven't had any success with dusting. Still they're getting ahead of me.
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Those are stink bugs. At least the ones in the picture are called stink bug around here. First things first - never crush one indoors. They release something when they are crushed other stink bugs can smell it a year or two later and are attracted to it.
I use permethrin 20% to spray on them. There is a wait time before harvest after you spray. Knocks them right out. What happens is that in the spring the insects come out of winter and breed. Instead of two there's twenty, then 400, you get my drift? By mid to late summer the destructive insects are so numerous it's almost not worth having a fall garden.
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Ducks. The eat the bugs, without much damage to the garden. Just the opposite of chickens.
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I pick them by hand.
Yes we pick them by hand also. We try to check twice a day early on.
Another good thing is to plant LATE in the season, according to where you are. We waited until June to plant our squash and then began the picking of the bugs. Once the plants get really big it's hard to check for the bugs.
We have gardening friends nearby that planted much earlier than we did and don't even have any actual squash on the blooms yet.
We also plant them so they can vine up and off the ground, which seems helpful in more than one way.
Good luck!
Bill
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My sister in law uses the shop vac to suck them off and then burns them. I put ashes out of the fire place and this helps some.
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Sometimes a way to kill them in a pile is to place something on the ground like cardboard. Leave it a couple of days and have sprayer ready, look under it and they should be hiding there. Soapy water works as well, however you could damage or kill the host plant.
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I have a duck pen in one corner of my garden, I periodically turn them out to eat the various types of beetles, cut-worms, ticks, slugs, and snails.
Best to do it after the plants are well started, over 3 inches tall. The ducks will eat grass and some weeds also but usually leave the harvestable garden plants alone once they are past the shoot stage.
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i was about to start a stink bug thread then i saw this. they wiped my squash out this summer then moved to my tomatoes. i used the soapy water and it set the squash plants back. i'm going to try the ducks or the lime next spring.