Why not just grow them under row cover? This is exactly the sort of application for which the lightweight floating row cover was developed.

One caveat with the use of row cover is that you need to use it in an area where squash has not been grown the last couple of years because you wouldn't want overwintering bugs or larvae to be in the soil or mulch with your plants underneath the floating row cover.

Another option is to spray the plants with Surround WP. Many people have had a lot of success protecting squash and pumpkin plants with it.

I understand the frustration. SVBs and squash bugs drive me up the wall, but I'm not going to stop growing summer and winter squash because we like eating them. I just refuse to let pesky insects dictate to me what I can and cannot grow. I'm pigheaded and stubborn and willing to fight the good fight against them most years. Sometimes I get tired of the constant search for squash bugs and their eggs, and just stop doing it and then lose the plants pretty quickly thereafter.

Every now and then neither pest shows up. I wish I could know in advance when one of those "no pest" years was going to occur because if I knew in advance there wouldn't be any of those pests, I'd plant a lot of varieties I cannot keep alive in a typical year.

Sometimes, too, you can skip growing them for a year or two and then plant them again and the pests don't show up and find them. This is less likely to work if there is another home garden pretty close by where squash is grown.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn. I guess my frustration is more to fact that it seems nothing works 100%. Even those who use row covers seem to have problems. I have never heard of Surround WP is it similar to Diatomaceous Earth . Ill look into that.

The other frustrating thing is that there hasnt been a garden on this property for years so I really felt confident that I would get away without pests for at least a year until they had time to find it. Apparently I was wrong.

I dont eat much squash myself but I do enjoy sharing with others. That is my biggest motivator in growing them.

mike

I am eating squash while I have it and not worrying about the bugs. The plants will soon die but I don't like poison and hand picking takes too much time.

Mike:

Same here. And it's absolutely mind-blowing to have both Squash bug AND the Squash Vine Borer.

I think it's a bad year for these.

bon

Dawn,

I have never heard of Surround WP so I looked it up. I was surprised to see that it's 95% kaolin. I remembered Kaolin from my Concrete Mix Design class in college or should I say I remembered Metakaolin. Metakaolin is essentially calcined (heated to a high temperature) kaolin. Kaolin is a type of clay.

Anyways I will have to look into it some more. It looks like to be most effective it has to be applied on a weekly basis as soon as the plants sprout. Sadly I have already had two zucchinis hit hard by bugs.

Surround WP is kaolin clay formulated to particles of a certain size, etc., that is supposed to make it superior to the regular kaolin clay that you can buy elsewhere. I have a 25-lb bag in the shed that I've never used because I hate spraying anything on the foliage that ruins the beautiful green foliage.To me, half the fun of gardening is being surrounded by lovely green leaves. The only plants I've seen sprayed with Surround have a dusty look to them, which is what they are supposed to have, I guess (or maybe those were oversprayed---I didn't spray them so I don't know). I keep saying I'll spray my squash plants with Surround WP and then I don't get around to doing it. Honestly, at this time of the year, it is all I can do to spend the morning half of the day harvesting, and the afternoon/evening part of the day cleaning, sorting, and processing (canning, dehydrating, freezing, etc.) the harvest, so the thought of taking time to mix up the Surround and spray it is just one more thing on a "to do" list that I never get around to doing. I always have the best of intentions, though. I just don't follow through on them. And no one here should tell my husband I've had Surround for at least 5 years and haven't used it, or he'll start asking questions about why I bought something that I'm not using. (grin)

Mike, Unfortunately, the pests are everywhere. First-year gardeners always are shocked that pests find their brand new garden within months, or even weeks, but I am not surprised. I see the same pests that we view as "garden pests" in our woods and in our grasslands, so all we are doing with a garden is giving them the plants they prefer in a nice, compact location. I used to see green tomato and tobacco hornworms crossing the road (not necessarily close to our house or garden....maybe a half-mile or mile away) when I walked the dogs when they (and I) were younger and had tons of energy to burn. We have oodles of plants in the fields that they like, so I wasn't surprised. Really, based on how many of them I see out in the open like that, I'm surprised my garden isn't full of them. It is the same way with squash pests. We have a stinky native gourd they prey upon on our land and it was here when we bought the place, so likely the pests were here before we were. Still, they didn't become a garden pest for a few years.

Bon, No, it is not mind-blowing. It is reality. They are problems everywhere in the whole world where squash is grown. It actually would be mind-blowing to not have them. Like flies, ants, and mosquitoes, they are virtually everywhere every year. Do we ever have a year where we say "I am surprised to see ants/mosquitoes/flies this year?" Nope. We don't. And it is the same way with everything we consider a garden pest. Maybe one year out of 4, I won't have squash bugs or squash vine borers in my garden, though it is not necessarily that I won't have both of them in the same year. More often, the squash bugs are AWOL one year and the SVBs are AWOL a different year. It is so unusual for them not to be here that I drive myself crazy wondering why they aren't showing up. (Because, of course, I want to understand why we don't have them that year so I can do whatever it takes to not have them again.)

I have killed a lot of squash bugs already, have seen squash vine borer moths a couple of times a week for the last few weeks, and haven't yet had a squash plant die yet. Now that I said that, I'll walk out tonight and have dead squash plants.

The best way to describe the pest problems we routinely encounter is that those pests always are here. It isn't that they come and go. They exist. They live, they breed, they die. New generations carry on. It is just a part of life, like the sun coming up every morning and going down every evening. Usually when we think we suddenly are having them and they just appeared out of nowhere, the truth is they've been around all along and just finally built up a large-enough population that we start seeing them and start seeing widespread damage.

Spider mites are my nemesis. I always have them. I usually start seeing them as early as March. Seeing them in March doesn't make me crazy. By July though? Their population is huge and the damage is widespread. I am kidding myself if I think I can control them because I will see them on every plant outside the garden. There's no way I'll have a garden free of them when they are so widespread all over my rural location. I can expend a lot of time fighting the mites (which my dad did, with disastrous results) and worrying and fretting over them, or I can grow what I want, harvest it as long as possible and yank out the plants when the spider mites reach such a large population that the plants are dying. I choose the latter. Sometimes you have to pick your battles, and rather than battling spider mites and letting them make me crazy during that battle, I give myself a break at midsummer when they peak and plant new tomato plants for fall.

If I could have happy plants that weren't stressed, the spider mites might not win the battle, but growing in our hot and dry location, with drought an almost constant issue, well, there's no way I won't have stressed tomato plants and I understand that. Being hot and dry stresses me too.

OSUEngineer, I am sorry your plants have been hit hard by bugs. I'm sure mine will be hit hard at some point, and when the bugs kill them, I'll plant new seeds and start over. I have pretty good success with planting early and getting a harvest before their population peaks in late June through late July, and then sowing more seed and getting a good harvest in late summer/autumn. Is it ideal? No, of course not, but we still get squash, even if we don't get it for the entire growing season.

I cannot imagine a summer with no summer squash.

Dawn

I found some evidence of SVBs on my squash yesterday. It was, in most cases right where the stem came out of the ground. I hilled dirt up on top of the crowns. I could not find any actual larva. If the are buried, will they die when they emerge? That would be nice. I told myself I was going to wrap the stems this year, but by the time they had grown enough to do that, the bed was a jungle. Next year I promice to grow under row overs!

Im sorry the squash pests have been overwhelming for a lot of people this year! Surprisingly im feeling pretty hopeful this year. Although, Ive already cut 2 SVB larva out of covered winter squash; Been on the lookout for more. Killed two moths so far, but ive only seen one squash bug all season (and he was smashed while trying to figure out a way around the cover). Im growing all C. Moschata varieties this year with the exception of a Dill's giant pumpkin, all under tunnels. My summer squash is in giant pots under netting too, although im clearly not feeding them enough because they are growing ridiculously slow. I have backup seedlings started and have smashed a few SVB eggs during my daily inspection. Im considering just using those as a trap crop? I dont know, I kind of feel like that may turn into a breeding ground I lose track of and then ill just be feeding, breeding, then overwintering more bad bugs. Ha. Here are a few picts of my covers im trying this year.

{{gwi:1109407}}

I was over at My parents and checking out their garden. Moms squash was covered in squash bugs. after reading about flicking them into bowls of soap water i thought why not try a spray bottle. We mixed up some soapy water in a bottle and sprayed them. It wasnt but a couple minutes and they had stopped dead. Ill be adding that to my arsenal.

mike

amunk01...

The tenting/netting approach looks very intriguing, but one question...how does pollination happen?

Are you hand-pollinating or capturing butterfly/bees inside the tenting/tunnels?

Just a newbie trying to learn what my grandpa took to the grave...

Mike

mike, Regarding the soap spray, be really careful spraying when the temperatures are hot, particularly early in the day. Too much soap can burn foliage, and often the damage doesn't show up until a day or two later and a gardener doesn't make the connection between the soap they sprayed and the damage because of the time lapse. Soap at a strong-enough rate is actually a herbicide.

When I spray anything with insecticidal soap in the summertime, I spray in late evening when the sun is about to set.

MikeC, When you grow squash (or cucumbers) under row cover, you do have to hand-pollinate or you can select parthenocarpic varieties.

I wish I could have my grandpa and dad back for 1 whole day so I could pick their brains for all the garden knowledge they had that I failed to ask them about while they were still alive.

Dawn

Thanks dawn. It was later in the day. The plants were on the way out anyways so it was more to kill the bugs than save the plant. I will keep that in mind next time we use it if needed.

Mike

Amunk01, how do you think vine borers are getting under your covers? It would be so nice to grow susceptible plants under cover and have them be SAFE.

I've been watching squash bugs crawl a long distance away to hide under mulch. They won't stay under the leaves any more. The only time I find them is when they are breeding and they're on the stem. They must forget themselves when they're doing the nasty. I must check at random times throughout the day to catch any on leaves. I don't find any eggs. I know I'm not that efficient at picking them off.

And I've seem them bury themselves in the dirt. I have begun using a spade to nab them and dump into a bucket.

Mike, I got your email but couldn't respond. Perhaps you may want to check your gardenweb profile settings? I believe you must choose to make your email available in the your profile preferences.
As Dawn said, they must be hand pollinated or uncovered. For now I intend to hand pollinate, once the heat really picks up I may change my mind though! Ha.
As for how bugs are still getting inside... my brilliant bulldogs seem to view my tunnels as "things mom built for our enjoyment". I have patched a few dog holes, the wind ripped pretty good sized tears near the clips one day or blow the sides out from under the boards securing them. Its been trial and error, but so far so good!

Amunk01, please keep us updated. I have dogs, too. Most everthing has to be dog proofed around here too. If it is plastic and on the ground, it is a chew toy.

Mike, I tried something different last year and it seemed to help. I plant my yellow squash in the shade, under a Bald Cypress and a Maple. It worked so well that I tried it again this year. The fact that they get very little sun makes them grow slowly. The trees and other flowers may confuse the squash but at least I am getting squash.

These squash are planted on the north side of Japan iris and sunflowers and under the cypress tree.

We have had some light storms and the plant near the phone box is damaged, maybe from the service man making repairs inside the box.

Larry