Attack of the Squash Bugs!

On a beautiful July morning, I ventured outside to water my growing garden.  As I sprinkled the pumpkin plants and completed my daily progress inspection, I noticed something very odd...some kind of beetle was hanging out on a leaf of MY plant.  Upon closer observation, I found a few more on the same plant.  This being my first garden, I had no idea what they could be.  I don't even know what possessed me to do research on it since bugs are really everywhere outside, and I believe most are harmless to your plants.  Luckily, I did do some research, and identified these creeps as Squash Bugs!

These guys are nasty!  I still don't know a lot about them except that they slowly kill your plants somehow.  But I was not about to let that happen!

So I did a little more research.  I found out that they lay eggs on the bottoms of your leaves.  And sure enough, I found a bunch.  This picture even shows a little baby one (That spider-looking thing with a green tushie...that's what the babies look like).

And so the battle began!  My husband had some kind of bug powder in his shop, which he sprinkled on the plants, and I did a daily egg hunt.

At first, I tried to scrape the eggs off the leaves with a stick.  Those suckers DO NOT like to come off.  In fact, I ended up ripping the leaves more than scraping the eggs.  So that was out the window.  But in my efforts I did manage to scrape off some into the soil, and that was that.  Then I learned that even if you scrape the eggs off, they can still hatch on the ground (oops...).  Further, that these guys winter in the soil and come back up the next year if you don't completely annihilate them!

Then I found this genius method somewhere on the internet (of course, I can't find it now, but if the gal who posted it ever sees this, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!  You saved my life!  And all the credit for this idea goes to you).  All you do is take a strip of duct tape, press the sticky side to the eggs, and peel.  The eggs COME RIGHT OFF!!!  It was a miracle!  It did take me a couple tries to get an entire grouping with one peel, but once you get the hang of it, it is quite easy.  Sometimes the stinkers put the eggs right in the little crook between two big veins in the leaf, and it can be hard to get the eggs off.  But just keep trying at different angles.  I have yet to leave an egg on a leaf because I couldn't get it off with the tape.

Now, this next step is crucial...once you've gotten all the eggs you can find onto the tape, roll it up and seal it in a little Ziploc baggie.  Then you can toss it with no worries!  I even dispose of the few adults I find (the powder really did take care of most of them) in the same way: stick them to the tape, roll it up, seal, and toss.  But that's just because I can't stand the crackling "squish" noise that comes with squashing them.  So I improvised.

I am still fighting the battle.  I don't know if it ever will be completely resolved, but for now I am happy keeping it under control this way.  It's not too hard to just bring the duct tape with me every time I water and do a quick inspection.  Half of the time I find nothing for a while, and suddenly see a few adults or a couple groups of eggs at a time.  I still have a lot to learn about squash bugs, and gardening in general, but I found this to be a very satisfying "ending" to this season's squash bug war.  I hope something I've shared can help you in your own potential battle of the squash bugs.


Do any of you have more tips on dealing with squash bugs?  Maybe some natural preventative tips?  I'd be interested to hear them!  Just leave a comment below.

An Account of the First Garden

Have you ever wanted to try something new, but you had NO IDEA how to do it?  And just the thought of trying made you cringe, but at the same time get so excited you could hardly stand it?  This is what gardening was to me.  A daunting task that only the most amazing and competent of homemakers could pull off!  And so it was, with great apprehension, that I started learning how to garden.

This Summer was our first year of growing a real garden.  We did try last year, but failed miserably.....we won't even get into that!  This year we started anew.  We prepared early: boxes were built, homemade compost was added, seeds were bought, and we couldn't wait to start gardening!  We bought several types of seeds to grow (although it was hard to narrow it down from what we wanted to grow, to what we figured we should try for our first time).  Here's what we planned:

• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Pumpkins
• Zucchini
• Lettuce
• Iceberg
• Romaine
• Spinach

• Peppers
• Anaheim Chiles
• Banana Peppers
• Bell Peppers
  

Planting day was so exciting!  We tried to set up a drip-line system, but that didn't work out how we had hoped.  Maybe next year.  For now, we are hand-watering.

At first, we had a hard time getting some things to grow.  We had planted broccoli, tomatoes, and peppers inside.  They grew nicely as seedlings!  However, not long after we transplanted, I went into labor with my third child.  My husband and I remembered to get someone to take care of our cats, but we totally forgot about getting someone to water the garden, and so three days of no water took it's toll.  This is what we were left with after replanting some of what had died:

• 1 broccoli plant
• 6 pepper plants
• 1 row of lettuce
• Pumpkins
• Zucchini

  The pumpkins and zucchini had a slow start, but now they are flourishing!

These pictures were taken in July.  This was the point where I finally believed I COULD grow something!  Woot woot!

The top picture is pumpkins and zucchini.  The one to the left is banana peppers, bell peppers, broccoli, and lettuce.  One of those pepper plants has since died, but we have gotten so many peppers form the other plants, that it didn't really matter.

Then little baby pumpkins...





 



...and zucchini started popping up!





A month later, we have been able to harvest some of our veggies.  Here is just a sampling of what we have picked:

See that huge zucchini?!?!?!?!?!

 
We had so many ups and downs trying to grow this garden.  But I learned a lot through trial-and-error.  Next year is going to be awesome!  I can't wait to try this again.  Maybe I'll tackle strawberries, too....mmmmmm.

Plus...another great reason to try again: homemade Chocolate Zucchini Cake!  YUMMMMMM!!!

Yes, we ate it before I took a picture...it could wait!

We also had a run-in with some squash bugs...YUCK!  To see what genius method I found to deal with these, you'll have to check back next Monday when I chronicle the "Attack of the Squash Bugs"!