I've had them on my yellow squash for at least a month now. I know they stink something awful, but I pick them off and stomp on them. I haven't checked my cuke plants at all though. :/

I haven't seen any yet, but have been expecting them to arrive any day now.

Hand-picking the eggs and squashing them in the nymph stage is usually very effective, but when you have a lot of plants they like, it sure is time-consuming.

For whatever reason, I didn't have a single squash bug or squash vine borer last year. It is extremely unlikely I'll have that kind of luck this year.

I guess the Squash Bug War has begun in some parts of the state.

I'm never happy to see squash bugs show up, but would rather deal with them than with squash vine borers.

I have had squash blossoms for weeks and haven't had one squash. I think there is one almost ready to pick, but the others are not getting pollinated and are dying on the vine. I have avoided pollinating by hand but it may be the only answer. It would really be nice if I could grow squash that didn't die before it produced, but some years I don't. I even kept these covered until they started blooming.

I read on another forum that a good spray of BT for worms and caterpillars used at the base of the plant and lower stems would stop SVB, but I haven't tried this. My problem is normally spuash bugs that spread disease. I have great looking plants, just no squash.

Carol, Are you not having bees and other pollinators flying around in your garden? I'd think they would be pollinating the squash if they are around. Hand-pollinating is not bad. I do it sometimes, but haven't had to do it this year.

Sometimes spraying Bt seems to deter squash vine borers and sometimes it doesn't. I know people who swear by it, and know others who swear at me if I mention Bt because they've tried it in the past and it hasn't worked for them. I suspect that maybe it works fairly well if sprayed regularly and if the plants are sprayed pretty heavily. If you miss any spots, the borers likely will find those spots and tunnel in through them. They are crafty little pests.

Some people inject Bt and/or beneficial nematods into the stems of their plants on a regular basis and say it has helped them save plants attacked by SVBs. That's just more work than I am going to do to a large number of plants on a regular basis. I have several dozen squash plants and I don't even have time to search all the leaves for eggs, much less run around injecting solutions of Btk or beneficial nematodes into them.

I spent all morning picking beans and now am snapping them. When I finish that, I'll go out and pick all the zucchini and squash, and will save some for fresh eating and process the rest. Then, if it isn't dark yet, I'll harvest tomatoes. Right now, just the harvesting/processing takes about 4 hours more per day than I have, and that doesn't even include dealing with the fruit harvest. Right now, SVBs could be in my garden having a convention and mapping out their strategy to kill my plants and I wouldn't even know. I haven't seen a single egg, but I also haven't been looking for them. This afternoon, as I harvest squash and zukes, I'll look for eggs, but only by glancing at plants as I 'm harvesting from them.

I used heavy saturation planting this year---planting as many yellow squash and zucchini plants as I could fit into the garden. I think there's 33 plants, but it could be 37 because I don't remember if the first 4 plants are included in that 33 or if the 33 is just the number in the two long rows on the north side of the garden and I need to add the 4 original plants to that. My plan was/is to harvest all I can and preserve it in the most appropriate way--mostly grating the zukes with the food processor so I can cook with them later. With yellow squash, I'm slicing and freezing it, or dehydrating it so I can throw it into soups and stews later. Once I have all we want in the freezer, I don't care if the plants die. In fact, since we can only eat so much of it fresh, I am hoping the plants die. Probably the squash bugs or svbs will show up sometime soon and kill the plants and I'll get my wish. I'd like to have fresh yellow squash all summer, so I recently planted six more of them away from the main planting of squash in the hope the pests won't find them. With my luck, the SVBs will find the new yellow squash plants first and kill them.

I've been expecting SVBs and squash bugs since at least May 1st, because they usually show up that early here in a warm spring, but so far there haven't been any. I have seen a lot of cucumber beetles, and they spread disease at least as much as the squash bugs do, so I am not happy to see them.

Today I saw a spined soldier bug on some bean plants, which had me singing 'hooray, hooray, hooray'. However, these usually show up after the squash bugs and SVBs which make me wonder if they are out there and I just have not been watching closely enough.

Dawn

I've had squash bugs since before the plants even bloomed this year! I've been picking them off and squishing them, and have picked off tons of eggs. It is a constant battle!

Suzie

Today, I picked 3 zucchini and 2 squash bugs. At least I will get a meal or two.

I assume you're eating the zucchini and squashed the squash bugs, and not the other way around.

If y'all get tired of hand-picking the nymphs, you can spray them with Spinosad, insecticidal soap or summerweight/all-season horticultural oil. Spinosad can harm bees, so if you use it, it is best to spray when bees are not active, and to avoid spraying it on the flowers the bees will visit. I try to spray it directly on the nymphs themselves. Often, though not always, it will kill the nymphs. It does not necessarily seem as effective on them once they are older and larger.

Mike McGrath offers great squash bug advice on the Gardens Alive! website, so I'll link it below. I especially like his mirror idea.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Squash Bug Control

Thank you for the link, Dawn. I like the mirror idea too!

Suzie

Suzie,

You're welcome. When I read his mirror suggestion, I was tickled pink. What a great idea! (Especially for gardeners of a certain age, or who have back problems or join issue or arthritis.)

When Mike McGrath was the editor of Organic Gardening magazine, it was my favorite magazine. Since he left, I don't like it nearly as much.

Dawn

Dawn, At times his humor was a little corny, but I loved the magazine back then. I read a few issues after he left, then just stopped buying it because it was 'stuffy' and a waste of money.

Carol, Oh, it was very corny. The first time I read one of his typical editor's columns, I thought that he was crazy. Yet, his style of writing grew on me and I came to appreciate his zany sense of humor and writing style. The magazine has gone downhill in so many ways since he left, and I like your use of the word 'stuffy' to describe it. It still is a beautiful magazine, but is not 1/10th as helpful in practical matters as it used to be. I kept subscribing to it for years after he left and finally gave up on it and didn't renew it the last time it expired. I miss the old Organic Gardening magazine I grew up with and read and loved.

His little tomato book, "You Bet Your Tomatoes", is just as unstuffy as he is and is one of my favorite tomato books. When you can read a book that tells you how to grow tomatoes and makes you laugh at the same time, to me that is a book worth reading.

Dawn

I have been watching them every time I pass over zucchini beds and always find one or two hiding there. I carefully search each and every plants, leaves, stems etc. Then water the plants to make any hiding in the mulch to come out. crush all eggs and nymps if any. Then I walk away happily thinking all are gone, but that is not the case :-( Hardly 2-3 homes have vegetable garden in our neighborhood. They may be coming from else where? I still don't have any solution to get rid of them completely. I have tried neem oil, BT, pepper, nothing seems to be affecting SBs. -Chandra

Chandra, If you catch them while they are young and still in the nymph stage, spraying them with spinosad normally will kill them. Sometimes neem kills the nymphs. Once they're older, they are a lot harder to kill and I usually just knock them off the plant into a bowl or bucket of soapy water and they drown.

There are some synthetic pesticides that supposedly kill squash bugs, but I cannot vouch for any of them because I haven't used them.

Rotenone reportly is one organic pesticide that kills squash bugs, but just because it is organic does not mean it is safe. I never have used it and don't intend to start now because I consider it too toxic to use around food we will eat, pets, wildlife or people.

Dawn

I have not seen a single nymph yet, which gives me hope that I'm catching all the eggs in time before they hatch. I'm battling tons of mating adults, though. I even found two in my cucumbers today, which worries me because there are WAY too many leaves on my cuke vines to check every one for eggs.

The squash vine borers are making quick work of my summer squash. I planted five and have already lost three. At least I got a decent harvest from them before they croaked. I guess they're just making room for more winter squash, which thankfully should be more resistant to them.

I've been able to control the squash bugs so far. I've wiped off a bunch of egg clusters and caught 4-5 batches of newborns gathered near where they hatched. Everything still seems healthy and producing so far, fingers crossed!!!

Heather, I am sorry to hear that the SVBs are getting your plants. They are really hard to fight, especially since we usually have two separate generations here. Lucky folks who live further north generally just have to deal with one SVB generation.

I used to grow all kinds of winter squash and pumpkins, but since the SVBs found us (I think I went 6 or 7 years here before they found my garden), I have switched to C. moschata types since they are the most tolerant of SVB damage. I won't say they never damage or kill C. moschata types, but they rarely do.

jdlaugh, It sounds like you're having great success controlling them.

I haven't seen a squash bug or SVB yet, though I confess I haven't really been looking for them. It is taking all my time just to keep up with the harvest since I grow so much for canning, freezing and dehydrating. However, I pick squash every other day, so think if there were any squash bugs here now, I'd see them while picking. When I had only a few squash plants years ago, I'd do exactly what you're doing and I was pretty successful at keeping the squash bugs at bay. However, counting succession crop plantings that are just now getting big enough to bloom, I have over 60 summer squash and winter squash, cucumber and melon plants, so there's not enough time in a day to scout all those leaves for pests. I'm going to have to rely on sheer luck and beneficial insects to keep my plants alive and growing.

I continue to do succession planting with yellow summer squash, planting 3 to 6 seeds in an area away from previous plantings about once every 3 weeks. That way, I always have younger, healthier plants coming along in case the SVBs or squash bugs get the earlier plantings. I've noticed they will attack older or more stressed plants first before they move to the younger, healthier ones.

I had nary a squash bug or borer last year, but know from experience that I won't be that lucky two years in a row.

Dawn

I found that dishwashing liquid mixed with water is very effective. I used Dawn dishwashing liquid and mixed it with water in my hand sprayer using about the amount I would use to wash dishes. It doesn't affect the eggs but will kill the squash bug within a couple of minutes if you spray it directly on the bug.

Well I have been checking for them and havent seen one. But I knew I had one plant looking bad. Guess I didnt turn over enough leaves. Still havent seen an adult but had eggs everywhere and some babies this morning. I used the duct tape on the eggs and it actually works pretty good. Tore some holes in the leaves but I did that scraping them too. It also worked very good on the babies just slapped it on them and they were done. Gonna go burn some squash bug eggy duct tape now.

I haven't seen any squash bugs either yet. Last year we didn't have them until really late in the summer. Haven't seen any SVBs either, but it is about the time they show up here, in the years that they do show up.

Burning is a good things for squash bugs and their eggs.

THIS WORKED!! For years I have had to pick off the little squash bugs...hundreds...thousands...ug and still they usually killed my plant. I prefer to go organic because of health issues, but what good does it do if you STARVE!
Anyway one year I noticed an assassin bug eating a squash bug, well, I started introducing these assassin bugs into my garden and specifically around my squash plants and I have had the most healthy, bug free squash plants. WOW!
Some people call them a wheel bug because of the big wheel on the male?s back.
I just watch for them when I am out hiking and stuff and scoop them into an empty water bottle and release them into the garden.
Warning though, assassin bugs have a bite that will have you screaming like a little baby. YOWZA! I got poked by one on the thumb and it hurt worse than a wasp sting...some say more like a scorpion sting.
I got to where I can recognize the assassin's eggs and young ones. I have friends that will bottle them up and bring them to me.
Maybe it is coincidence...but I do not think so. This year I had a volunteer come up that was a cross between a giant pumpkin and an acorn squash! SOOO delicious but HUGE. :) happy gardening.

Hi Joyce, Welcome to the forum.

Many of us do have all kinds of assassin bugs in our garden, and many of us also are organic or at least about 99% organic too.

The assassin bugs belong to the family Reduviidae, and there's approximately 7000 species of them worldwide. That largest one in the USA is indeed the Wheelbug (Arilus cristatus) which can reach 1.25" in length when fully mature. They are one of the main predatory bugs in my garden each year, and sometimes show up as early as May and sometimes not until July. This year, they showed up in May and seemed to spend most of the month on my tomato and cabbage plants, completely ignoring the squash plants. Spined soldier bugs (which look a great deal like brown stink bugs) were over in the squash bed though. I also have had the more colorful Milkweed Assassin Bugs in my garden this year. Sometimes inexperienced gardeners accidentally kill the nymphs of the Wheel bugs, mistaking them for the nymphs of leaf-footed bugs which are pest bugs that look very similar to wheel bug nymphs. In my garden, the nymphs of the wheel bugs spread out and hunt actively while still very young while the leaf-footed nymphs stick together in large numbers, which makes it easier to spot the leaf-footed ones and kill them. Another kind of assassin bug I sometimes see in my garden is the Ambush bug.

In my garden, the squash bugs showed up extra early this year, but we wiped them out before the end of May and I haven't seen one since. I also haven't seen any squash vine borers, which are a much worse problem in Oklahoma than squash bugs. I gardened happily here, growing up to 30 kinds of winter and summer squash per year, for 6 or 7 years before the SVBs even found us. Those were wonderful years.

The only problem with assassin bugs, in general, is that they will eat good bugs as well as bad bugs, and some of them prey on bees, which makes them generally unwelcome in a beekeeper's garden. And, of course, there's that particular (and fairly well known) assassin bug known as kissing bugs, commonly found in the USA only in California, Arizona, New Mexico and southern Texas, that bite people on the face, usually near the mouth, and spread a parasite that causes Chagas disease. Those bugs are also found from Mexico down to South America. I've never seen a kissing bug up here in Oklahoma.

I have a garden full of all kinds of predatory insects that do a pretty good job of keeping the pest insects under control, but the wheel bug is my favorite because it is the only one large enough to attack grasshoppers.

People who live in cities often don't have a lot of naturally-occurring assassin bugs, often because so much pesticide is sprayed in their neighborhoods that it either kills them or kills off so many of the pest insects they prey upon that the assassin bugs don't have a large enough food supply to encourage them to stick around. For folks like that, there's insectaries that sell some types of assassin bugs that gardeners can buy and release. I live in the country, so we have a nice population of all kinds of insects, good and bad, and I mostly just let the good bugs take care of the bad bugs. Generally the pest insects show up first and their numbers grow for a while because the predatory insects don't produce a new generation until they are sure there's enough pest insects available as food to enable the young predatory insects to survive and thrive. Once the predatory insects show up, though, they do a pretty good job taking care of the pest insects.

Dawn

Great post!! I'd never heard of the wheel bug, I looked up pictures and WOW! They look formidable. I have lost 3 of my squash plants to SVB already and it looks like my last zucchini will fall to the squash bug. In May, when I first noticed the eggs, I would go out morning and evening to check for them. Kept them at bay for a while but then it was a losing battle. Will research different planting methods for next year. I'd like a late planting of yellow squash but don't know if there is a place around here that sells established plants. I have so much to learn, I'm trying not to get too overwhelmed and take careful steps in the right direction to improve my soil which in turn should be an easier path to lessen the presence of harmful pests (I've heard).

Wheel bugs are awesome. A few years back I had hundreds of them in my garden for some reason, first time ever I have seen them. This year, I think maybe I have seen three. As for SVBs, I have been running outside about 5 times a day with my butterfly net trying to catch those damn moths and then go look for eggs. Only caught 4 moths today, but managed to scape off about 50 eggs.

Hailey, It is incredibly easy to grow squash from seed. Buy a pack of seeds, sow some of them directly in the ground, keep the soil moist (not sopping wet) and you'll have plants in no time. That way you are not reliant on purchasing plants, which wouldn't like being transplanted in this heat anyway.

The easiest way (other than using a broad-spectrum pesticide) to protect your plants from squash bugs and squash vine borers is to grow your squash under floating row cover (the lightweight summer type that allows sunlight and good airflow, not the heavier winter-weight frost blankets), insect-proof netting, or tulle netting suspended over hoops. I have hoops made from EMT and also have some made from regular PVC pipe. You can leave the protective textile material over your plants only until they start blooming or you can leave it on the entire growing season as long as you lift it briefly daily to hand-pollinate the female flowers. One thing to remember is that this works best if you start off with it in spring and not in the same area where you had the squash the previous year. Why? Because overwintering squash bugs or SVBs may be in that area already.

The best way to defeat Squash Vine Borers is to grow only squash from the C. moschata family, which mostly consists of winter squash. There are several C. moschata summer squash varieties available from Kitazawa Seeds. While squash bugs still may attack the C. moschata types, they rarely harm them enough in my garden to kill the plants, and the SVBs largely steer clear of the C. moschata type. I generally get an early crop of yellow straightneck or crookneck squash in spring before the pests show up, and then use the C. moschata summer squash varieties for succession plantings. Also, any winter squash can be harvested and used as a summer squash as long as you harvest it within 1-3 days of it being pollinated/fertilized. I harvest tons of Seminole Pumpkin (a C. moschata type winter squash) fruit when they are slightly largely than a baseball, which usually is within about 3 days of the appearance of the bloom, and they are every bit as good as any yellow squash.

Improving your soil is a long process that takes years and is never-ending, and plants grown in improving soils often can tolerate more disease and insect-pressure than plants grown in poor soil, but make no mistake about it----in Oklahoma we have exactly the weather squash bugs and squash vine borers prefer and you can have the most perfect soil imaginable and it will not help save your plants from squash bugs and squash vine borers. It just won't. These specific pests are too prolific, and it only takes one squash bug to infect your plants with bacteria that causes bacterial wilt and kills the plants.

kfrinkle, Clearly you had something the wheel bugs wanted to eat that year. I don't think I have had as many assassin bugs and wheel bugs this year as I do in some years, and I wonder if the massive flooding we have endured in May, June and July has negatively impacted their population. I do still have some, though, and it seems like they are staying busy.

I still cannot believe how many you have there and suspect they are overwintering in large numbers near you for some reason.

If I had as big of a problem with them as you do, I believe I'd bite the bullet, buy Proteknet biothrips netting (it is massively expensive for a home gardener though, which is why I haven't done this), build a hoophouse covered with the netting, and grow C. pepo and C. maxima only within that hoophouse. Yes, it would be very costly, but imagine being able to walk into your hoophouse and harvest any kind of squash you want to grow throughout the entire growing season. There's no guarantee the netting would keep all the pests out since some could be soil-dwelling and could hatch out within it (unless you put it where you haven't grown squash before), but it would keep out most of them if not all of them.

I'll link JSS's listing for the Proteknet in case anyone wants to read about it. Other types of netting are available, and in smaller sizes, but this is the one that is the most well-known and most widely-distributed. I think that maybe a good-quality mosquito netting might work well enough, though you might not find one with holes as small as those in the ProtekNet. Tulle works okay over low tunnels, but it is not all that sturdy so I don't think I'd use it over a high tunnel or hoophouse.

Dawn

Proteknet "Biothrips" @ Johnny's Selected Seeds

Thanks everyone for the input. If I may run my plan by you guys, I'd appreciate any input if you have it to give. I planted beautiful pole beans this year, the only problem was not one bean grew. I desperately want some so this is what I want to do. I want to plant a late season (fall) crop. I feel like my soil needs major improvement, I did a soil test, the Ph is 7.5 which isn't too off the charts for veggies. I have already pulled up all of my squash plants as well as my pole beans. I want to plant winter squash, bush beans, and (cross my fingers) more yellow crookneck, as I was certainly jilted this year by the bugs previously mentioned. I want to incorporate Azomite and a molasses (or other sugar booster) into the soil and some cotton burr compost I already have. Some people have strong opinions on the use of that, but mine says organic and since I already have it, I'm going to use it. Mix that in well, and in Oklahoma, the extension office suggests my winter squash (butternut and acorn) need to go in before month's end. Looks like I have till mid August for the beans and yellow squash, of which I will plant in another area of the garden. By that time, I will probably pull my sickly tomato plants, they produce, but something is going on with them, some kind of wilt. My corn will be pulled so I'll have plenty of room for these plants. I mulch with straw. I was hoping to plant a cover crop, for the very first time, but from what I read, my fall planting may interfere with the timing of a cover crop. Any more suggestions? Oh, and once everything is done for the season, I will rake the straw aside, mow copious amounts of leaves from my yard and my neighbors (win/win) and plop them on top followed by that straw I moved. I will also lay cardboard and newspaper on 4 feet of grass over the winter so I can extend my garden. I will dig that grass (or whats left of it) and start over anew with the entire plot. Do I sound a little hopeful? My main goal is to really work on improving my soil while also enjoying any veggies that may produce. I am patient and stubborn. I refuse to fail!! At least I will go down fighting!

Sound good with exception to the cardboard over grass. If that grass is Bermuda, you'll need a different plan of attack. Cardboard is helpful to amend soil, but you'll find Bermuda quite happy beneath it.

Learn from my mistake: Start small. It takes enormous amounts of organic material to improve soil. Once it is improved, it takes copious amounts to keep it that way. What you describe is a lot of work. I attempted it and wish I'd kept it simpler. I recently have been forced to downsize and I'm seeing the relief.

It is Bermuda and it's certainly not my intention to make it happy! In the past, I've just always tried to smother it the best I could and then each spring, when I loosen the soil, yank as many roots as I can. It's stubborn for sure and I'm not so sure there is any way to kill it. Gosh I do hope I'm not in over my head. I'm thinking the initial fertilizing and incorporation would be the more intense part of my plan but after that I hope it would not be so much work, I guess I'll see! I also like to keep it simple. Too late? : |

LOL, when I read Hailey's post I thought "that sounds like Bon" (Chickencoupe). Most of us are in over our heads. I keep adding beds, and thinking of more stuff I want to grow. I have way more seedlings than room for fall stuff. I have about decided tomatoes in pots are useless. Except for Large Red Cherry. More tomatoes on it than anything else in my garden.

Round-up, applied in hot weather and following all the label directions will kill bermuda grass. I just choose not to use it because it doesn't really fit with my organic philosophy. Also, if you spray Round-up and kill bermuda grass in an area, as long as there is more bermuda grass in an adjacent area, it simply sends stolons into the sprayed area to grow and take back that area.

After 17 years of fighting bermuda grass to keep it out of my front veggie garden, I'd say I only have 5-10% as much bermuda grass as I did in the early years here, but it has taken a lot of persistence to keep it out of the garden, and in some of the early years, I let it grow back into the garden more than I should have. Nowadays, when I see some bermuda grass popping up here or there, I drop everything, grab a trowel and immediately dig it out. I do not throw it on the compost pile either because it will root in and regrow. I put it in a garbage bag and have it hauled off with the trash.

Those of you having trouble with bermuda grass taking over a garden spot could water that area very well right now if nothing desirable is growing in there with the bermuda grass, and then cover it with heavy, clear plastic (available on rolls in big box stores including Lowe's, Home Depot and sometimes Wal-Mart), weighed down around the edges with lumber or stones. If you cover it now and let the hot summer sun cook that bermuda grass for the next couple of months, it either will kill the bermuda grass or weaken it enough that it will be easier for you to dig it out this fall. Solarization in hot weather (but not in cold) can not only kill the bermuda grass, but also kills weed seeds in the soil, some soil-dwelling diseases and some soil-dwelling pests. For solarization in our climate, clear plastic works better than black plastic.

Hailey, You can interplant some cover crops as a living mulch underneath your crops (I often use clover this way) or there are some cold-tolerant cover crops that can be planted as late as October (even November in southern OK, though early cold makes planting that late risky). Certainly you could sow seeds of cover crop/green manure crop radishes or turnips in autumn and let them grow until/if cold weather kills them. Then, they rot in the ground and that enriches the soil. Both rye and hairy vetch can be planted fairly late, as can winter wheat or oats. Be sure you match your choice of cover crop to your needs in terms of how you can handle the cover crop in order to get it out of your way before winter/spring planting season arrives. Some things, like rye, grow so vigorously that you really need to cut them down (I use a mower or weed-eater depending on whether they are growing in a raised bed or at grade level) and then use a rototiller or cultivator to work them into the soil well before planting time. Otherwise, they'll keep growing and have roots so dense that you cannot get your cool-season crops planted and off to a good start.

Southern peas (pinkeye purple hull, black-eyed, green-eyes, lady, zipper or cream peas) make a great green manure crop if sown in July. You let them grow, harvest your peas in the fall (I usually harvest in late September or early October from a late-July planting) and then cut off the plants at the ground level and let both the top growth and the roots decompose in place. Or, you can use a rototiller, a cultivator or hand tools to dig them into the soil and let them rot underground, and immediately sow clover or rye right away. It will sprout and grow. Sometimes extreme cold gets a late-sown cover or green manure crop, but sometimes they tolerate the cold (it depends on how well-established they are before the really cold weather arrives) and grow all winter. You also can plant forage-type radishes or turnips in fall, or you can grow a cover crop of mustard, which normally survives all winter in my part (southern) of OK. It is possible to have a fall garden and a winter cover crop too. You even can sow your cover crop in your pathways as long as you don't have a problem with venomous snakes in your garden.

Round-up, applied in the type of heat we have now, and applied following label directions, absolutely will kill bermuda grass. However, if you only kill part of the bermuda grass you have, then the adjacent bermuda grass you left as lawn grass will grow right into the area where you killed existing grass with Roundup in no time. That's the problem with trying to have a garden adjacent to a bermuda grass lawn or field. I choose not to use Round-up because it doesn't fit with my organic philosophy, but that means I have to aggressively dig out every sprig of bermuda grass that pops up in my garden. That was nearly impossible in the early years here when our garden was rock-hard clay despite tons of amending each year. However, as the soil got better and better each year, it became easier to dig out the bermuda grass, so every year I was able to control it a bit better than the year before. You also need to remember that Round-up, if applied as a spray, can drift into the garden and damage or kill your crops. If I was applying it to bermuda grass near the garden, I'd use a paint roller and roll it into the grass I wanted to kill. If I wanted to spot-treat bermuda grass that was growing inside my garden, I'd carefully apply it to the grass with a small foam brush (sold on the crafts aisle at stores) taking great care to not drip it or splatter it onto nearby desireable plants. I'm in my 17th year with the front veggie garden and the bermuda grass problem in it is probably only 5-10% of what it once was, but I have had to religiously dig it out when it pops up or it spreads in the blink of an eye and you find yourself hopelessly behind on digging it out. I still have to fight other grassy weeds pretty hard, but I live in the country where weed seeds blow around and get washed in by rain, so that's never going to change.

In a wet year like this, it is almost impossible to control the weedy grasses (or the broad-leaved ones) because it stayed too wet to step foot in the garden, even to dig up weeds, for such a long time. All we can do is try to regroup and reclaim our garden soil in the fall or winter before planting time arrives in 2016.

Every year brings different challenges, and we gardeners just do our best to roll with the punches and deal with each issue as it arises. It is common to feel overwhelmed----in hot, dry years we might feel overwhelmed by the squash bugs or fire ants or grasshoppers, in wet years the issues might be the many fungal and bacterial diseases that run rampant in those years or the weeds/grasses that do the same, and in almost perfect years, we might be overwhelmed by keeping up with all the harvesting, eating, processing and giving away of all the garden bounty. I just try to let those potentially overwhelming issues roll of my back and I try to find the joy of gardening in any challenge. In new gardens, it is so easy to be overwhelmed by how hard you have to fight to keep the weeds (including bermuda grass) away, but it gets better as the years go on and you gain the upper hand.

Nothing improves a garden more than a gardener's blood, sweat and tears, as Hazel pointed out, but you also have to remember to take care of the gardener, and not push yourself so hard to do all the work that it takes all the fun out of gardening. This is particularly important with the kind of air temperatures and heat index numbers that we're having right now. I'd rather be having fun in a somewhat untidy garden in the cool early-morning and late-evening hours, than killing myself and hating every minute of it in a perfectly tidy garden. We gardeners may be able to almost achieve garden perfection in spring or very early summer, but once the horrible July and August heat set in, we just have to work around the heat as best we can and not make ourselves sick trying to work too many hours out there in brutal conditions. I love my garden, but my health is more important than keeping it weed-free in July and August.

Dawn

Bermuda grass is not something you will ever win against. If you spray roundup or dig it up you must learn to live with a certain amount in your gardens. All you can do is keep it at the level you can tolerate. I speak from experience, long hours of pulling and spraying trying to get and keep that perfectly neet garden. Some say I have a little OCD, well that might be true but Bermuda grass is a never ending problem.

so sit back and enjoy the garden as it is and always will be, natures gift.

HA! You are so right about the Bermuda grass! I know it is a no win situation and just yank out all of the runners when I loosen my soil. One of the reasons I like Bermuda grass is that it doesn't need watering! It lives on and on and on. It is stubborn and persistent. I grew up in Albuquerque, and back then, most yards had grass. Now most have xeriscapes, smart move for the dry state it has been in for so long. When that grass, which I don't remember it's name, was not watered, it would die and not come back. Bermuda is easy. I forgive it's intrusion. I can live with it. It is actually fascinating! I just wish it grew in my yard as well as it wants to in my garden. I don't have many weeds, like I mentioned earlier, I mulch heavily with straw and I think that covers them pretty well. The weeds/unwanted grass that pokes through are fairly easy to pull.

So this year I had a light bulb moment. The place where I work, unfortunately, throws many (and I mean MANY) plastic bags full of ice/melted ice, in the dumpster daily and I have been asking my work mates to save them for me and I provide a big bucket. I take them home every night and haul them to my garden and cut them open and either fill big buckets or pour them right on my plants. It can be a pain in the back, but I have yet to turn on my hose to water. I do hate all of the wasted plastic bags though.

Tomorrow is the day for planting my first ever winter squash, I will buy the seeds from a garden center here since my zone tells me to do it now. I want acorn and butternut and I may give yellow crookneck another shot. Wish me luck!

Bermuda grass certainly has its purposes. Were it not for Bermuda erosion would be a severe problem. It's not the best for erosion control, say, like clover, but it grows almost all year long and covers quick even in our harsh climate.

Bermuda grass has its purpose, which I guess would be to halt erosion in Bermuda. (grin)

It is just another example of a horribly invasive plant that should have been left in its natural habitat and not brought here to run rampant in ours. There are many nice native grasses in Oklahoma that might not fit the average homeowners image of being a green carpet of grass, but they are native and peacefully coexist with other native grasses and forbs. Buffalo grass is one of them.

Forget squash bugs, I want for someone to import some Bermuda grass bugs that would ravenously devour all the bermuda grass. Every. Last. Bit. Of. It.

Hailey, Good Luck with your next attempt at squash. Just keep your acorn and yellow squash covered or you'll just be starting a new squash bug/squash vine borer colony. Butternut should be fine uncovered. I sometimes have squash bugs get on it but they don't hurt it and the SVBs don't either.

That's great ice/water recycling. I have had to water the last 2 weeks and I'm not happy about it, but the garden looks too good for me to not water it and just let it die. I don't know if I'll feel that way if no rain falls for another 2 to 4 weeks. Once the heat starts getting to me, I start letting the watering slide more and more. It just gets so hot that I don't care if the annuals die. I'm not at that point yet, and really not likely to get there since I have been planting new plants for fall. If a huge horde of grasshoppers flies in, I would be less inclined to keep watering because keeping the garden green would just attract more and more of them and I'm not in the mood to fight grasshoppers.

Dawn

Bermuda grass makes good hay and good grazing. Just like everything it has its good and bad issues. Some native grasses in certain conditions are a real headache. I think Bermuda gets a bad rap sometimes because it can be invasive in so many different situations. I say this as I'm pulling and cussing it out of my garden. I have noticed that while it tries to take over my garden, that bare spot in the yard had not filled in yet? Very strange indeed.

the bare spot? I know, right? I notice that bermuda grass responds very differently when I dig in raw kitchen scraps. At first, it would seem to be a pH issue, but it grows everywhere, so that is probably not the issue. It sends out runners through compost rather than roots. Very strange, indeed. I keep watching.

Dawn, I really hate the reality they have come up with super Bermuda. I cannot figure out WHY anyone would need super Bermuda

Super Bermuda, YIKES!!!!

Bringing it back to squash bugs (and SVB).

Well, they found me. Counting down the days until my zucchini and summer squash plants are dead. I knew it was coming and feel lucky that I had such a nice harvest. Even managed to freeze a few bags. Spent quite a while scraping eggs and killed 4 adult bugs and about 10 baby bugs. Also, killed several SVB. They're smaller than I thought--the moths. But, did see a couple of creepy looking assassin bugs. So, I stopped digging around in the plants. Those assassin bugs scare me. They stare ya down.

Question. How often do squash bugs and SVB attack cucumbers? It seems like everyone around here has much luck with cucumbers, but the bugs kill the squash and zucchini easily.

Also my neighbor said that squash bugs attach melons. Really??? Say it's not true. My watermelons are so pretty and just at the beginning stages of setting fruit.

Last year's garden was a mess. I mistakenly planted Pepo squash gourds and I lost that squash bug battle. After the Pepo. gourds were done for, they headed over to the Old Timey Cornfield pumpkin and destroyed all those leaves which grew back, later. But when the pumpkin leaves were gone, they headed over to the bottle gourd leaves. They had a hard time destroying those but spread disease (as much as I can tell). They never wandered over to my puny cucumber plants about 300 feet away. I figured they would because the squash bug convention was out of control, but they did not. I'd imagine if cukes were nearby and they were out of space for their convention and parties, they might.

My yellow squash and zucchini plants are all history. I did get a fair amount of yellow and feasted on my favorite squash recipe, one batch after another! I picked enough Zucchini to freeze some and make a few loaves of bread, I am going to try to plant a late season round of summer squash hoping to miss the bugs. Next year I will do more to protect them. So far I have not had a problem with my cucumbers, I have them coming out of my ears! My cantaloupe plants were planted later and look nice and healthy, no flowers yet though. Oh and I had a volunteer pumpkin come up and grow like mad but those borers made quick work of it. I'm thinking of planting one on purpose, for eating. I've got my row covers ready!

I haven't had much trouble with squash bugs on either melons or cucumbers, but some people have a lot of trouble with them. However, I do try to kill squash bugs when I see them, so maybe I kill off most of them before they can find the cukes or melons. Usually I grow the winter squash, melons and cukes in the back garden, which we never planted this year because of the incredibly heavy rainfall, so the squash bugs in the front garden are separated from the cukes and melons by over 100 yards. I don't know if that is why I don't have squash bug issues on the melons or cukes. This year, the melons are in the front garden and I haven't seen a squash bug on them, but I do think I wiped out all the squash bugs in June because I haven't seen any of them since then.

I have Sugar Baby watermelons and Hale's Jumbo muskmelons in the front garden and haven't found any sort of pest on them yet, except for spider mites which are everywhere here in the summer and get worse as the heat worsens. The spider mite population ought to be peaking now and should start to fall soon, so I think my garden has outlasted it this year.

Stockergal, I am sure the farmer who once farmed our land planted the bermuda, and I hate it. When we bought the place we had beautiful native grasses mixed with wildflowers and it was so beautiful and everything peacefully coexisted together. When it came time to mow all that down short in the area selected for our home site, so that the builder could start construction of our home, we instantly had bermuda grass pop up everywhere. Without the taller prairie grasses to shade it, it took over the area and outgrew everything else. I've been fighting to keep the bermuda grass out of beds of ornamental planting ever since. The thing that works best for me is to shade it out, but once trees are big enough to shade it out, you do have to plant a shade-loving ground-cover for erosion control. and we'll never be rid of all the bermuda because our yard never will be fully shady.

Hailey, Have the row cover ready. The minute one squash pops up out of the ground, the squash bugs and SVBs will materialize out of thin air.

Dawn

Yeah...it seems like they do materialize out of thin air. How do they live until they find some squash....do they eat other things? Really, other than a couple of other neighbors, I'm the only one who gardens out here. And their houses are far away--so...where do the squash bugs and SVB hang out until I plant squash for them to destroy?

I tried to imagine what a tidy July and August garden might look like, but then I remembered seeing pictures of Larry's garden, so I guess it is possible.