My biggest problem is with squash bugs. If I don't watch a squash plant, the squash bugs will kill it within 2 weeks of its emergence.

For SVBs, I plant C. moschata species. Squash bugs do not like this species either.

I'm lucky though; I get lots of free squash every week.

I've had the same problem for the last 2 years. I've decided to plant later this year. I haven't started them yet. I figure I'll get them started in late july and just buy them until then. Hopefully the bugs will have moved on or died off by then.

rjinga,
I am north of you in SC and the bugs have been the worst I have ever seen.
I have already had to pull out three squash plants and do SVB surgery on 4 other squash and pumpkins.Some of the squash had just barely begun producing.
Last week I did buy a zucchini and straight neck squash and put them under a row cover. I will see how that goes.

The pupae of squash vine borers overwinter in soil. Plow the soil before first snow and again in the spring to destroy cocoons left over from last season.

Someone here recommended pantyhose wrapped around the base of the plants to help.

Other solutions:

Olive oil spray around the base.

Companion plant Tansy.

You can slit the stem with a knife and remove the borer then cover stem with dirt or inject BT into the stem.

Take rhubarb leaves and makes a tea (toxic) and pour it on the ground around the plant.

Companion plant Mint.

A mild solution of household ammonia in water poured over the vines of squash keep the vine bores away and also give a little nitrogen to the plants.

Companion plant radishes.

Squares of heavy aluminum foil measuring 15-18 inches on a side, placed shiny side up around the bases of the plants.

Companion plant nasturtiums.

Guinea hens clear out SVB w/o harming the plants/fruit.

Destroy vines after harvest to destroy any larvae remaining inside stems.

Cover the vines at plant joints to encourage growth of secondary roots, which can support the plant if the main stem is damaged.

Destroy the moths in twilight or early morning when they are resting on the upper side of the leaf bases.

Pick off the eggs before they hatch.

I just ripped out 2 pumpkin plants, decided since the ends were making roots, to cut them off and replant in their space. I then cut open the other 3 plants, finding one borer larvae in each, then moved into my squash which seem to be doing better with just egg picking, found one, I waited to operate too late, but maybe not.

I'm totally disappointed because I don't know if I like the taste of other squashes compared to yellow squash. I'm growing White Patty Pan and it's doing great, no bugs. The Sweet Dumpling, a pumpkin type squash, is slow growing, but doing ok and no bugs.

I think you have to decide on whether you want to give up yellow squash altogether, or grow one you are not familiar with.

There are DEFINITELY resistant varieties, like the ones I mentioned, plus Cushaw and Butternut are not only good replacements for pumpkin, which seems to be the biggest problem, but even commercial growers aren't growing pumpkins, like Libby's, the pumkin on the label is just for looks, it's really butternut or cushaw.

You might be safe to say it's your pumpkin plant that has no resistance rather than your squash if you grow both. There were only at the most 10 eggs on my scalloped or white patty pans, and that was when the bugs first emereged, they came back twice, and I haven't found a bug on those varieties every since.

Potash and fish oil will create lye and potasium salts with fatty accids, killing squash bugs, but I don't know about the borers.

It really sets me back to fool with these plants when there are other things not getting done, I'm totally wet from my head down from sweat just picking the eggs in late afternoons, not even midday hot sun. It really is a bother.

I feel your pain. I garden in containers and just as I started picking SVB eggs from my plants, I started having to deal with those dreaded pickleworms. They never come this early in the year. Ugh!

I have seen a few squash bug eggs and removed them. I haven't seen SVBs or their eggs.
I am thinking that since I am growing my first ever garden and doing so in containers I have fewer problems then I would if I had been growing squash for several years.

Has anyone tried the board menthod? You can leave a board in between your rows and in the morning you will find your squash bugs under them. This will give you an opportunity to kill them all at once, but with what?

When you step on them, they will just sink into the ground because their hardshell protects them. I guess laying a layer of some poison under there they can't detect might work, but what can't they smell or avoid if they know it's there?

What about flipping the board and immediately spraying the bugs before they have a chance to get away.

Of course it would be pretty satisfying to also stomp on them.

Spray with what? Maybe we can treat them like a tick, by putting petroleum jelly on their backs to stop them from breathing?

Yeah, that would be satisfying. I'm going to die in this heat picking eggs. I may have to go out at night with a flood light looking for them when it's cooler.

I have had white patty pan (BIG GORGEOUS plants one day, a big wilted pile the next and also butternut squash (last year) that also were killed by the SVB...Have not found a variety yet that is resistant. I dont know if this is a regional thing or what. I do not til my garden any longer, so maybe I'm enabling this cycle?

I just dont have it in me to be outside in 80-100 degrees picking off eggs. Plus it kills my back...sigh

Just for the record. Libby's uses and promotes a selection of the Dickinson pumpkin. It is a C. moschata, but has the pumpkin shape. Never had any trouble with SVB on a C. moschata. Squash bugs are pretty indescriminate and they are out in greater numbers this year. There are few insecticides available to a home gardener that will touch them and they seem to have no predators..

I'm thinking of heating up some fish fry grease in the microwave tomorrow to spray on them.

"INSECTICIDE: A U.S.D.A. formula combining oil and soap is effective in killing soft-bodied insects. Mix 1 cup peanut, safflower, corn, soybean, or sunflower oil with 1 tablespoon liquid dishwashing detergent. To make the spray, use 11/2 teaspoons of the oil-detergent mixture for each cup of water.

SLUG DOUGH: According to our friends at Organic Gardening, a great bait is a home brew that can be kept in your refrigerator: 1 Tbs. Molasses, 3 Tbs. Cornmeal, 1â2 c. flour, 1â2 c. water, and 1â2 Tbs. Yeast." (Jimster)

(The slug dough may not pertain to the OP, but since it is useful & part of Jimster's post, I've included it also).

I have used a similar spray to control squash bugs, with 1 tsp. of sugar added per quart of solution. The sugar blocks their spiracles (the holes they breathe through) even after the soap solution has dried. Provided that the bugs are soaked completely, they die very rapidly. This works on both adults and nymphs... I believe it kills the eggs too, but I can' be certain. "

A quote from an old post above found here:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cornucop/msg0600133230335.html

So it's 1 cup of oil, I'm going to use my old fish fry grease, 1 tablespoon of liquid dish washing detergent mixed together adding 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of the mixture above for 1 cup of water to spray on the bugs. For a quart/4 cups of water, add 5 teaspoons plus one 1 tablespoon of sugar.

Bait them in with the slug dough if you need a lure to your board. I'll be waiting tomorrow to see what crawls under it and then I'll spray. I hope I don't kill anything important like my plants.

Do you know what a pin thin 1 inch brown worm or larvae would be? It's got a white underside, the top brown, but where it's segmented, you can see the white underside, there are lots of segmented sections. I found it while digging out a larvae of the other few squash plants just now. Is that a nematode? If I'm lucky, or a nonbeneficial who wants to take over where the larvae leaves off. I was not aware of other boaring worms. Did I finally get that word spelled right? Or is it boring? Well, I'll find out.

Here is a link that might be useful: read bottom post

Last note for tonight!

"I have always planted marigolds around my tomatoes... don't know if it has actually helped them, but it certainly doesn't seem to have hurt them at all. My tomatoes have been trouble-free except for late blight during last year's wet summer.

I love companion planting; it makes for a beautiful garden and attracts lots of pollinators and beneficial insects, if nothing else. Sometimes my N of 1 finds good results from something I try... like the nasturtiums acting as a very effective trap crop for aphids, or the squash interplanted with flowering radishes which were untouched by SVB while the others were all hit. Coincidence? Maybe, but it certainly didn't hurt anything, and might have helped!"

Read the 21st paragraph from the top, it's still a new thread, but ended in April.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0222423818346.html

After the burning hot fish grease emulsion, I'll plant more radishes. Maybe none of it works, but it will be fun to see what a radish flower looks like.

Here is a link that might be useful: Flowering radishes

Scarletdaisies,
If you let a Daikon radish go to seed, it gets pretty darn big!

(click the link to see pics)

Don't worry though, the regular radishes I planted with my squash last year didn't get nearly this huge.

Here is a link that might be useful: Daikon Radish

This is how I protected my squash this year:
{{gwi:66730}}
I just took 4 lengths of #9 wire bent into half-circles and pushed them into the soil. Then I covered it with the lightest agribon & held it onto the wire with clothespins and rocks.

There are 2 cavili squash plants that I grew from seed underneath. They've gotten huge, have lots of flowers and I noticed a fruit about 3 inches long on Monday! Yaaaay! I can't wait to eat it. :-)

I also grew tromboncino squash on a trellis, which last year were resistant to SVB. They take a while to grow though, so I don't expect to get a harvest of them until August.

I'll avoid the Daikon radish, it's too big! LOL! The only real and proven organic control over squash bugs is pyrethrum oil, it comes from Chrysanthemums, more directly it is manufactured from the Painted Daisy Chrysanthemum.

If you companion plant Painted Daisy, a late bloomer, with a plant called Pyrethrum plant, a pink daisy and an early bloomer, you might save yourself a lot of work.

My plan next year, being I don't think I want to change my setup this year, too late to move everything and no daisies yet to plant, is to box 3 squash plants in a 5 foot square area, alternating planting an edging of Pyrethrum plant and Painted or Shasta daisy and the oils from the plants shaken by the wind or my two hands every now and then, might release a constant pyrethrum oil odor or residue. It doesn't take much and is mixed with water I think, this might work.

I like the flowering radish idea just for looks, they're not my favorite vegetable or spice.

The only problem I see with my plan is that the pink daisy, pyrethrum plant, is about $7.50 to buy counting shipping and handling, so hmmm. Not sure if I want to do that.

Has anyone tried DE?

SVB scarcely exists around here; squash bugs are present always but vary a lot from not a problem to occasionally killing a plant. For the first time this spring I had cucumber beetles, they pretty well wrecked my second planting of squashes

This year I am trying sweet potatoes very seriously. If I can get good production out of them I will pretty much abandon winter squash, because I'd rather eat a sweet potato any day and winter squash always seems to end up taking up a huge amount of space in exchange for relatively few unimpressive-tasting fruits.

Do you have to smash the squash eggs to destroy them? If they fall onto the ground without being smashed will they hatch and survive? They have a strong adhesive which makes them difficult to remove into a container.

I am about to give up on the squash too. After reading this thread we checked our squash, the 3 still alive, and found the worm. One didn't make it and the other 2 are buried and in ICU. Next year I'll wait until now to plant.

You can jab the plant with needles where you think it is, maybe to kill it. I've been asking around and everyone I know is using seven dust and they have no problem. I don't want to use it and I'll try more alternatives.

One lady says she uses vaporub on the bottoms of her plants, I'm going to try this too. She also uses other methods along with it. The eggs are getting less and less, so maybe it's true they stop laying in July.

Too late for me, I may just grow mine under a cloth, keeping them healthy, and in July pull the cover off letting them fruit until frost. You can also hand pollinate.

I'm having a fit still over it. I'm reading everyone's thread, searching on the internet for answers as well. Someone said he planted Bread Poppies around his plant, in a different spot than the others, it was the only one that lived. I bought the seeds for those too, so it's really too late to plant them, but next year I will isolate each plant with each method or groups of methods, and see if any of those work.

Sorry to hear about your plant. It's really a waste!

I hear yall the squash bugs are terrible this year, I had 18 plants but it was working me hard trying to keep up with the squash bugs, thought I would lose them all even though in june they produced about 75 squash, I was thinking maybe that would be it, but I decided to pull half the plants rather than losing all of them now within 4 days I have wiped out all eggs and all squash bugs,knock on wood..I went out with a squirt bottle with drop of dishsoap and rest water and just sprayed under the leaves and on top this killed all nymphs almost instantly and the bigger ones also, the larger harder adult ones came to the top of the leaves and I finally picked all of them off,took tape and pulled the eggs off,worked good now the plants look great again, lots of new leaves shootin up.now this past week ive only found 3 squash bugs and that beats two weeks ago when their were literally hundreds, the dishsoap and water in a squirt bottle really works wonders..For me summer squash is one of my favorite vegetables, love me some poormans crabcakes and squash pie, now I believe I will be alright, but a couple of weeks ago I was about to give up on them too.

I did mine in a concoction that made most of the leaves die off and turn yellow. Soap, garlic, red pepper seeds, etc., etc., but they were on the vine the whole time running under things. I didn't do the soil though. Glad you got some squash out of it. You might add sugar to your soap and water mix, it's supposed to clog their breathing up when it dries killing them. It's July and they lightened up on egg laying. I see them, but not as much. I've been killing them when I catch them.

I would love to say I got 75 squash out of my plants! 2 are alive, but nothing lasts on the vine, out of 6 plants and 6 pumpkin, only 2 yellow long neck squash, maybe 3. I can't tell.

i've been spraying bt & dusting with diatomaceous earth. when i find eggs i remove that section of the leaf with a scissors & drop them into a bucket of kerosene. when it gets too hot i do garden chores with a sprinkler running......

I have mixed feelings about growing squash.

I usually do grow it in my garden, only to vow I won't do it again! SVB is one reason - but usually that alone hasn't been such a big deal. When I've had it in the past it was after I had reaped quite a few squash from the plants and was almost tired of it at that point. When the SVB invaded, I just pulled up the plants and moved on.

For me, squash is just such a space hog in the garden. I don't have a lot of space in my little plot and squash always takes up more than its fair share. I swear, some of the plants are as big as Volkswagons! ;)

Also squash is one of those vegetables that doesn't taste significantly different "right out of the garden" compared to "right out of the produce section". For the most part the quality is indistinguishable as compared to say, tomatoes. No one says, "oh what delicious homegrown, vine ripened squash". ;)

But every year I say that and almost every year I plant it anyway. Something about paying for it when I know how easy it is to grow for almost nothing makes me plant it just "one more time". (Really, this year is the LAST TIME I grow squash. LOL)

This is the first year I am growing squash. It is always mentioned how easy it is to grow squash. If you have to deal with the SVB, I would disagree that it is easy to grow.

I think I will try to cover my squash next year. It will be far less work to hand pollinate than it is to keep on top of the SVB. I found more eggs and even some small SVB worms inside a flower today. I was hoping that by July I wouldn't need to worry about them any more. I was wrong.

I have my squash staked and my yellow crookneck is almost 6 feet tall now. I'll have to think about how to make a cover work.

{{gwi:66731}}

I tried for 3 years to grow zucchini after I moved to NC, and finally on my fourth year, I've been successful. I tried row covers, but they dramatically increased other harmful insect populations that were protected from predators under the row covers, plus there's always the chance you missed a hibernating SVB in the dirt from the previous year. On top of that, you have to hand pollinate.

What has worked for me is a trick I learned from a neighbor who grows tons of squash in the same conditions.
- Buy transplants or grow transplants (rather than growing from seed which is so tempting) so that they have a head start and are bigger and vining more before the SVB hit them -- they need to have more than one vine.
- Place chopped onions around the base of the plant. That discourages them because they hate the smell. I also sprinkle with granulated garlic.
- Every few days mound up wet/ moist dirt around the vines, cover them well. Let the SVB do their damage but keep the dirt on all the lower vines you can. The vines will heal and continue to grow and you'll have squash. I have huge zucchini plants and multiple fruits on each.
- Be sure and dig up the soil and kill all the SVBs hibernating in the dirt after the season.

I'll try the onions too too. I put down some bt, cut out some eggs. It's really easier and picking I always damage the plant anyways, will have to try the tape, haven't yet. I'm seeing almost null activity, but depends on the day. I still have patty pans and my sweet dumpling are just blooming with male only plants. 3 new acorn and I hope I have time to get anything out of them.

I'm feeling better now. People do have successes even in svb territories. I didn't know the squash plant would grow upwards. That's interesting, something to think about next year. One plant if it's big enough can do the work of 4 or more. That's a big plant!

Thanks for the good advice!