Tips and Tricks for Preventing Squash Bugs
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
ADVERTISEMENT
I read about bay leaf treatment, tried it, ground up some old bay leaves to a powder, dusted one plant, and watched with glee as they all scrambled away.
In response to Lynn LaMar, you are gardening in the wrong season. In zone 10 our growing season is the fall and winter. Zucchini's are hard to grow here in the best of times, but impossible in the heat and humidity of summer.
You can also put fire or smoke ash in with seed or plant when you plant. It provides some prevention.
We spray a neem oil and dish soap solution on everything including squash and pumpkin . This has been pretty effective . We have to spray every five days or so . This is an all natural option . We still do checks we get a few here and there. Check leaves for eggs pull those or scrap and burn leaves or put in neem solution.
Believe it or not, at 69 years old I am a 'new gardener' in SW Florida, of all places. lol I researched what I could grow and where and how and I'm happy happy with my little garden BUT. I had planted only 5 zucchini plants since it's only me and I've already lost 3 with 1 more in the wings under destruction. I've read all about bugs and nothing seems to fit the description of what's happening to my plants. I've just started 3 more babies and they're coming up strong. I've done everything recommended short of "the board." I don't see anything except little black dots under the leaves in the morning and I remove and squash them. I just bought very expensive organic essential oil spray "Dr. Earth Final Stop" that has stopped nothing...Use food grade DE around the base and that seems to slow things down. Also, Mrs. Meyer's hand soap with water in a spray bottle also seems to slow things down. My tomatoes look fine. My beans look fine. I have containers of rosemary, mint and lavender stationed right next door, yet, the destruction continues. I have one little guy struggling to grow and he looks shriveled and done for. This is crazy!! What's next folks????
Could you describe in more detail what’s happening to your plants? We may be able to help identify the culprit.
Aside from squash bugs, the other main pests of squash tend to be slugs (when plants are young) and squash vine borers (when plants are a little older). However, the issue could also be unrelated to pests—are they getting enough water, too much direct sun, etc.
Can I use Epsom salts when I plant the zucchini, putting it in the hole before I put plant in?
Generally, we would not recommend using Epsom salt in the garden. Studies have shown its use to be inconclusive at best, and too much magnesium (Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate) in the soil can actually cause more problems than you would otherwise be trying to solve.
Lost everything this year besides 1 whole cantaloupe and the tomatoes. This was my second year of real growing and we composted the vines last year and these things just took off. This explains so much. I mostly planted everything they love and they killed every watermelon, cucumber, squash, and pumpkin plant. What a waste. Now I know how to prevent it! Thank You!
Squash bugs (or so I thought) have zapped just about everything in my garden, including peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and yellow squash. I sprayed heavily with Sevin but it doesn’t affect adults. Could I be dealing with some other bug that looks like a stink bug? Should I skip a year of planting a garden? I have 4 raised beds, 6’x16’ each 2’ tall. I am in middle Mississippi.
