This year, in my garden at least, there were not many of the cuke beetles, but those little buggers made quite an impact. They affected my beans, heirloom tomatoes, melons and lemon cukes. The adults laid their eggs on my cockscomb amaranth, since no corn was around I suppose, which had grown to 6-feet! I can't imagine a swarm of the little devils! Although only the melons and a couple of heirloom tomato plants failed to survive the attack, they delayed maturation by my account about 2 weeks of several other tomato varieties, like beefsteak, producing wilt all round the yard or so it seemed. My early strategy, before I saw the beetle adults, was to attack the wilt problem as a fungus because we had so much rain in the Spring and the heirlooms showed the first signs. Once I found an adult in my melons, I mixed a solution of neem oil, antibacterial dish soap, and a horticultural oil and sprayed generally, especially the beans and tomatoes. While this had some impact on the beetles and aphids on the nasturtiums, what I found more effective was the addition of a jalapeno pepper solution to the initial mix which really seem to slow their advance. But, by then, however, they had already laid their eggs on the roots of my amaranth, which I discovered when pulling up a group that had fallen over, I thought from some heavy wind, but it proved to be the work of the spotted yellow microbeast that had attacked the roots. I was able to destroy quite a few of the young by hand and foot (where is that cordless vacuum when you need it?). Now, I'm preparing a plan to deal with this pest for next season as I clean and prepare the beds for winter. One recommendation is to turn over the soil to expose any larva and remove any root debris. Any other ideas would be appreciated. Also, below are two links to some information about organic controls related to this discussion: Cucumber beetles: http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/cucumberbeetle.pdf Squash pests: http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/squash_pest.pdf ATTRA Plant Diseases ID and Management Brochure, 4 pages (A very handy tool for newbies and masters): http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/IPM/disease.pdf

For those of you having troubles with cukes and squash, you might want to inter-plant with nasturtiums next time, try it! My garden in 9b is just going to be one year old, or should I rather say, I will be celebrating one year of being the garden's loving custodian....so I have lots of troubles. In march/April I had a jungle of brassicas (both rapas and oleraceas). I had this green explosion and almost ran out of room in the freezer. Turnips, kales, collards, bok choi, beet greens, you name it. When it got warmer the harlequin beetles attacked them and they all died, after I had hopes for their perennialization (a word?). The Harlequin proceeded to suck the jalapenos and the tomatoes, ruining several tomato plants too. I was (am) so afraid to put brassicas on the ground again, until I realized I need to give them sacrificial crops. This started to work to some extent last year, and my fear was that sunflowers would not sprout at this time of the year. Guess what? they did! I now have sunflowers growing and I just planted some kale and mustards near them. Not sure if nasturtiums will do the trick for brassicas but I put them in too. We also got some brussel sprouts trying to germinate in a protected environment (terrarium), I think I will use the plastic cylinders from soft drink bottles that grandad from Louisiana is showing on the cole crops thread. So glad I overcame my fear of trying brassicas again. I still have to successfully grow cauliflowers and broccoli though. We will see how the brussel sprouts do and think about it, my cauliflowers never flowered last year, but the leaves were good....LOL In the mean time, the amaranth is still producing as many greens as I need. They are tougher leaves now that the plants are seeding, so I just cook them longer and they are still acceptable. Whatever tries to attack them gets in turn eaten by a large collection of lady bugs that seem to hang out near them a lot. I am encouraging more lady bugs by planting more and more cilantro. When they reach their end I will still have several dozen pounds of frozen green in the freezer from the spring. After that I hope the cole crops will be ready to harvest, and the harlequins somewhat controlled. So I hope anyways. I was so furious when i found out they are an introduced species! grrrr.....and no predators either, not even chickens will eat them. Anybody knows of other sacrificial crops to deter bugs from cole crops? I will need something after the sunflowers run their course, but I suppose since now I know they will grow at any time, I can keep planting more and more sunflowers. A very handsome looking sacrificial crop at that.....

Thai Green Beans and butternut squash 1 medium butternut squash, split in half and baked at 350C until done (pierce with a fork to test) 1 can regular coconut milk (15 oz or so) 2 cups fresh cut green beans (frozen works too but fresh is best) 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp sugar 1 tbsp lemon or lime juice 3 leaves from a kaffir lime 1 small bunch of fresh thai basil AKA Siam queen (regular sweet basil will also work) 1 small bunch chopped scallions 1 sliced hot pepper (I used cayenne and thai red peppers, leave in slices so they can be removed if desired  green hot peppers will also work here) Salt to taste Bake butternut squash. When cool enough to handle, peel, seed and cut into 1 inch chunks. Open can of coconut milk. Use some of the solids on top (the oil) to sauté garlic, kaffir lime leaves, sugar, salt and hot peppers for just a few minutes (do not burn the garlic). Add green beans and squash cubes and stir. Add the rest of the coconut milk can and cook for 10-15 minutes until green beans are done. Taste, adjust seasonings and sprinkle top with chopped scallions.

Howdy, Mountain Curmudgeon. You said, "I thought that this method requred no weeding." Well, basically you just described greenhouse hydroponics in a cleanroom environment.... What classic squarefoot gardening does is reduce your weeding to something ridiculously pathetic, like the 1 pitiful thread of weed per 3 blocks (48 sq ft) I averaged in my 25 x 25 garden each week. No hoeing, no jungle to hack back if you miss weeding for a week or two. How is this possible? Weed seeds need sun and water, just like the next plant. If you don't provide both sun and water, seeds generally don't sprout much. Both mulch and water control are good sprouting inhibitors. That translates as less work in the garden--a position I generally favor. *cheeky grin* Now a lot of folks use watering systems that may wet bare soil around their growing plants, and maybe they used genuine dirt and/or cold compost (sources of weed seeds) to build their beds. They will have some weeding to do, but still nothing like a typical backyard "jungle garden." This is just the price we are willing to pay for the convenience (or necessity) of using a squarefoot variation. Then there is the case where, through no fault of the gardener, the fertile garden beds are exposed to abundant trash. In this case, with old-fashioned methods, a garden would have probably crossed the line from "troublesome" to "failed" long since. Just clarifying. Here is a link that might be useful: Ye Olde Cleanroom Environment