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
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I’ve pulled all my zucchini and squash plants for the season. I had squash bugs but the plants were hearty and still grew several zucchini and yellow squash from each plant. I’ve been using a fly swatter to kill the bugs when I saw them and now that the plants are gone will the bugs go away? Do they hibernate in the winter? I live in Utah so it will be cold, will that help kill them off? Any advice will be appreciated.
Wow!
After reading these responses, it sounds hopeless!
You can never find all of the bugs and eggs to pick off, and spraying kills the bees!
Actually no acceptable solution here !
☹ï¸
Neem oil in water with a little bit of soap as a wetting agent in a spray bottle. Thoroughly spray every week or so, more if the infestation is bad. It may not totally get rid of them at first because they proliferate so quickly in the spring, but it will keep them under control and eventually you'll get the upper hand. It is only dangerous to "bad" bugs, in that only the ones that eat the plant are effected by it. It also helps with powdery mildew.
How do you tell the difference between a squash bug and triatominae? The one I photographed was mostly yellow, not so much brown as squash bug...
I placed plastic bowls between each plant, in them I put some water and a little squirt of dish soap. The next day each bowl had a squash bug or bugs. I changed the water every other day. I made up a quart of squeezed garlic, with cayenne pepper, Tbsp, maybe, just dumped it in, and a squeeze of dish soap. Poured that around the stem every other day. Bug are essentially gone. Found a couple small deposits of eggs, but not the dozens that would be here by now. I'm checking for eggs every other day. The adult bugs are dead in the soap water. But our season is just getting going. I see below someone used Neem oil and I'm going to add that.
I didn't add to fill the quart with water after putting in the garlic and cayenne and soap.
Was wondering if anyone has had any luck using diatomaceous earth on plants, eggs, adults and whatever? Thanks
I have used DE for these bugs. It does not work on adults or eggs just the nymphs that have thin skins. The de will scratch the shell of the bug and dehydrate them, You must reapply after it rains,
I have tried the Diatomaceous Earth & for the most part it did work. However I just checked on my plants today & the little buggers seemed to lay eggs on the belly of a few leaves. I will try again. I also did not know if I cut the leaves that had the eggs on them & then dusted if that would be effective too???
Diatomaceous earth (DE) will kill squash bug adults and nymphs, but because it will need to be applied to the leaves and stems of plants to be effective, there’s also a chance that it will kill pollinators, like bees and butterflies, as well as other beneficial insects, like ladybugs. If you do apply it to plants, apply it in the early morning or late evening and avoid applying it on or near flowers.
