Hmmmm, I can't imagine earwigs bothering your squash or Zukes. If they did, I wouldn't be drowning under truckloads of zucchinis and lemon cucumbers right now. My garden is lousy with earwigs, they get into everything, but they don't seem to damage anything, with the possible exception of tender, young seedlings. Some earwigs do, however, eat aphids and scale insects. Perhaps where you found the earwigs, if you look closely, you might find tiny sucking insects of some sort. Maybe.

Thanks for confirming the hopelessness of this addiction!! LOL Plantlady2008, you should make some YouTube videos of hubby cutting them for winter storage. There are a few bad quality vids on there, but nothing of good quality. I didn't cut last year's up, I'll wait to see where the new shoots are and then cut. Do you have any pics of your garden with all those 6,500 plants!!!???? That musts be a sight to behold. I was sorry to see quite a few of the dinnerplate sized tubers from Costco are dried up, and wrinkled with no shoots. Oh well, the good thing is that Costco will give you your money back. Come on, Spring - I want to get these planted in the garden! LOL

That is great news! Nice job :) FYI- you will probably need to stake AA Dahlias, and it is a bit tricky to do without piercing the tubers. I would plan to get stakes now, about a foot shorter than their mature height. I always put a 1 foot piece of bamboo in the ground when I plant them and they replace it with a larger (3-4')metal stake. I put the bamboo in so I can mark where it is safe to stake later, because I don't like looking at a bunch of tall stakes in the garden with little dahlias. I wait until the dahlias are 2-3 feet tall so they hide the final metal stake. Keriann~

After searching to hopefully find a non lethal way to get rid of the Four Lined Plant Bug, to no avail to speak of, I did run across this newspaper advice column in the link below. The second Question and answer contributes to your problem with the four lined plant bug. A little late for this year, but plenty of time to get ready to attack them this fall. As they say prevention is the best medicine. Here is a copy of that question and answer. I hope they don't mind and if the moderators feel it best to delete it, please leave the link. "QI have a huge area that is planted with Russian sage, mums as well as a few other perennials. The problem is that almost all the plants have these tiny brown circles all over the top part of the leaves. I don't know if it's a disease or an insect. Chuck, Fair Oaks Based on what you described, you may have a fungus or you could possibly have what we call four-lined plant bugs. They are easily identified by the four black stripes running down their back. They have a range of hosts, including fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs and cucurbits. The associated damage consists of spots that look similar to fungal disease spot and can be misidentified as such. With piercing/sucking mouthparts, the four-lined plant bug removes the plant's chlorophyll. A toxin present in their saliva is also secreted during feeding that digests the components responsible for holding the plant cells together. This feeding produces white, dark or translucent spots 1/16 to 1/8 inch in diameter on the plant's leaves, which can merge together (if there is substantial damage) forming large blotches. Entire leaves can turn brown, curl up and eventually fall off. If feeding occurs on new growth, wilting may result. The damage by four-lined plant bugs may be misidentified as fungal disease spots because of their similar appearance. When the damaged portion of the leaf falls out, a shot hole will remain that looks similar to fungal disease. Four-lined plant bugs can be troublesome to get rid of. During the fall, the banana-shaped eggs are laid in the old stems of the plant. The eggs will overwinter and hatch in late April-May just after the plant's foliage emerge. The agility of this bug contributes to the problem because when disturbed, the bug will drop to the ground or will hide and is therefore rarely seen. In order to keep damage to a minimum, begin to check plants in midspring around May-June for damage. Start to use control at the first sign of damage, since just a few bugs can cause severe damage. Insecticidal soaps and summer horticultural oils prove useful as well as acephate or malathion. It is also possible to remove a lot of the old stem in the fall, which will likely remove egg masses. Look for the eggs; they are banana-shaped and highly visible and can be easily disposed of when there are no leaves on the plant. The best way to beat a lot of damage is to be observant early on in the year because once you start to see signs of damage, you have to act quickly. Four-lined plant bugs have only one life cycle per season. The damage will usually stop sometime around the end of June, so spraying later than June for this insect is not usually necessary or effective." Spock Here is a link that might be useful: Ask Dan, The Herald in Orange County, CA