Squash bugs

We have a terrible problem with squash borers, how do I control them? They totally destroy my plants every year. Can I treat the soil?

I would really like to know too! They are little and white right? and they lay reddish egg clusters on the bottom side of the leave right? I caught them on the zucchini and treated, but they just moved to the pumpkin patch, and I gave up on the pumpkins except I POURED a whole bag of seven dust on the whole patch (nothing edible) and hopefully they won't start feasting on my butternuts!!!!!

I will let you know how that turns out....

well they are still there! I am gonna pull all squash and burn it!!!!!! I'm seriously considering tilling in seven dust although I hate to resort to such extremes. I read that if you have them now, you will always have them.... just great!

I'm told that if you can fence in your garden and put in a few guinea hens that they will do a terrific job of eating the bugs, and they do not harm the produce.
I haven't tried it myself to confirm but someday I hope to give it a whirl.

This message was edited Aug 9, 2012 6:48 AM

apparently they also like tomatoes!!!! With all my cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini and butternut pulled and burned they have moved onto tomatoes! I will not plant any squash or cucumber next year! Oh yeah, they are on the sunflowers too!

sweetie77
do the bugs on your tomatoes look like this ones?

no. They are squash bugs that moved from the neighboring squash and laid eggs all on the underside of the tomatoe leaves when I pulled all the squash! I did a little research and squash bugs WILL, indead, attack some neighboring plants, including tomatoes! Instead of calling them squash bugs they should call them demon vegetable plant destroyers!

ooohhhhhhh aaahhhhhhh

Are you asking about squash borers or squash bugs? The title says bugs but the first post says borers?

Since my squash has always been host to the 'squash borers' I decided to try a little experiment.

I cut a large diameter straw into 2-3in sections - then I slit the section up on one side. I planted my seeds at the bottom on the 2in section... in the dirt mound. The straw They sprouted and grew up through the straw. The straw sort of protected the base stalk. For my transplants I just opened up the the slit straw and slid it around the base. As the squash vine grew the straw just expanded to handle the increasing diameter.

Well -- it really worked. I didn't have any squash borer issue -- that I could detect anyways. My neighbor told me that someone SHE knows does the same thing with some sort of pantyhose..??.. I can't quite picture what she described though... unless it was panty hose from a doll..??..

great job jannz2 !
My question is on what do you do when the SVB attack the other stems ?
SVB does lay eggs everywhere. If you have a large squash plant, the eggs will be on every stems ...
Should you put straws/panty hoses in all the stems?

When I've had issues with the squash borers it's always been at the base stem... just where it comes out of the soil.
It would look like a termite had been there with all the 'residue' that was left.

ok,
I had multiple attacks on my squash plants. Close to the soil, on the last stem ... almost every where ... sight

I had squash BUGS, but maybe borers to? I pulled a large grub looking wormy thing out of the stem of one of my plants. Was that a squash borer?

Yup, where the larva grow. Sevin won't help, some folx pretreat but this year was just an over buggy year. For those squash bugs in the picture? Those are leaffooted bugs, and you can plant sunflowers which attract them and it is easier to keep the leaffooted bugs off your other plants. The borers are definitely harder to kill and I'm not sure there are any success stories out there

YUKKY BUGS!!!! LOL! Just so happens I DID plant sunflowers there too this year! Maybe that's why I only got 2 of the 3 dreaded squash destroyers! I'm telling you after this summer I'm ready to pull everything and till sevin into my gardens and hope for a better garden next year! I don't know much about the borers, I'll have to do some research!

A lot of folx do a pretreat of the ground before planting, Bayer is a pretty good one, Sevin never was effective after 2 weeks, but I don't remember if it is spiniest or a pyrethrum you need to look for