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.