My approach to squash bugs has been to scrape off eggs by hand and to squish babies and random adults. Then spray with rotenone/pyrethrin. Recently, though, we were away for almost 3 weeks, and when we returned there was a swarm! I took a big bowl of water to the garden and snipped off infected leaves and put them in the water. When the occasional hardy adult crawled to the surface I squished him. Then I dumped the whole mess into the creek. I then sprayed as usual.
las
New technique for squash bugs
I thought they were a southern thing -- not even a Maine freeze kills the buggers!
Go for the mass extinction! Yup that's about what's needed here. I find clusters of them under some of the really ratty dried up leaves. I'd like to take a flame weeder out there and roast them. your method sounds great, those leaves are so prickly now, and the bugs are sneaky when you try to hand pick. and yes they will float on plain water or floating leaf pieces and then crawl out of the bucket.