The active ingredient in AzaGard is azadirachtin which comes from Neem Oil. There have been mixed reports about its effectiveness against stink bugs. It appears to be most effective against them in the nymph stage, but it needs to come into direct contact with them to kill. How many stink bug nymphs did you see in your garden? I didn't even see the bugs themselves, but I did see extensive damage on my tomatoes and peppers at harvest. If you can't find them, you can't kill them. An organic insecticide that is supposed to be a little more effective against them is pyrethrin. There are also traps that work like Japanese beetle traps, but if you look at the reviews they get on Amazon.com, you can see that most people didn't think they were effective. The problem is that contact insecticides are not effective because of the bugs have hard coats, and they feed by piercing the skin of the fruit or vegetable, so they avoid most of the insecticide on the surface. They feed on so many different kinds of plants that you would need to treat everything in your garden to begin to make a dent. It sounds like the most effective control for home gardeners is growing trap crops (like okra or amaranth), using row covers and, from what Dave says, using a kaolin clay product like Surround.

Have no advice about stink bugs, but have one about 4 years old eating fruit without washing. Make it fun to her. Make a faucet available for her to use outside. Teach her how to properly wash her hands and the fruit. I am sure she will be washing it several times before she eats it - just because it is FUN to use the faucet). If you having problem with water running outside, you can use something like this.(see photo). in Russian it called "rukomoinik". Just make sure you change water in it 2 times a day when your daughter is outside and do not leave water in when she is not around. You can also wash it inside with some antibacterial wash before add fresh water in it. I know, it is almost impossible to buy such thing in US, but you can actually make one from old pot with cover and and some metal stick. Here is a link that might be useful: Read about

Stink beetles are common in CA. I believe like most beetles, the adults feed on both decaying vegetation and live vegetation. So I would consider it a pest. Im not completely sure on this, I know that weevils (a beetle) and Japanese beetles are extremely damaging, I think that most beetles are somewhat voracious. Check to see if you see damage to your plants. Usually Ortho Seven will kill most beetles and weevils.

mcmillan968 I'm with you on the desire to be as chemical free as possible. My purchase of sevin spray was my first 'chemical' purchase in a few years. As you read, I use soap and water for the stink bugs, but I am finding the leaf-footed a bit harder to deal with. If they continue to ruin all of my tomatoes, or at least damage them to the point that they are undesireable to me, then at that point I can stop gardening and save all kinds of energy. If I buy a dustbuster just to deal with the leaf-footed bugs, then I might be doing more environmental harm than just using sevin. A new dustbuster just adds one more battery to our environment. That is, however, why I bought the sevin spray, so I can spray just the individual bugs, as opposed to dusting the entire plant with sevin dust as I did my first year gardening. A spot treatment I believe is what I am employing. Besides, leaf-footed bugs do not sit on flowers, only tomatoes, so sevin will never be sprayed on the flowers, so hopefully the bees will not contact tje sevin. I'll take your kind words to heart and keep looking for convenient methods that do not involve needless chemicals. I guess I'll have to work on my method of grabbing them mechanically a bit more. Thanks Vance