Russmizel I want to give you many thanks for posting that link. It was very interesting as well as useful to me! now bookmarked... I had posted a thread (in the California gardening, not here) asking how to control murgantia histrionica, which some folks call Harlequin bugs (or beetles). I also searched old threads, but there was not much other than hand picking and well, not much else. Neem oil does not work and I am not willing to use pesticides. They sucked the life out of my brassicas (cole crops) which are perennials here, and I had to uproot them (with tears in my eyes, my beloved lacinato kale...). They proceeded to jump on my jalapenos (yes folks, pepper spray does not work with them, they like hot peppers!), they ruined now about 3-4 tomato plants but fortunately found the sunflowers I grow for this purpose. They are squatting on one of the largest sunflowers and this makes it easy to pick them too. Fortunately they are leaving the other peppers alone (I still have a lot of flowers and growing little peppers on my pepper plants) I never asked about the other @#$%$$# bugs, the green stink one (Nezara viridula), because they made the scene a little later....in the front garden beds.... and of course, they found their way to my okra pods. After reading the articles I see that okra is very attractive to them. I learned that they can be distracted or trapped by 'sacrificial' crops and I just planted sunflowers there, since I hope to use that bed (far away from the other brassica bed) to grow brassicas again in a couple of months. Learning what other crops can be used sacrificially is also very interesting, as well as all the important timing information. On a happier note, I found something really good last night in the okra beds. I have been coming home, and putting in the latex gloves, and doing a bit of very unpleasant (hence the latex gloves) hand extermination. I do not like killing anything, and I don't like touching bugs with my bare hands. Every day there were fewer to pick (of both the Harlequins and the green stink bugs). Last night I searched the okra very carefully and found none! I usually find at least 2-3....I kept looking and there was this green branches on one of the okra flowers, I look closely and it is a large green insect with long spindly legs and an alien like head. I googled it and found out it was a praying mantid! it ate the green bugs! I wonder if it would also eat the Harlequins? so things are better now.....and thanks again for the link.

I live in the northwestern corner of CT and had a fair amount of trouble with vine borers and squash bugs last year with my zucchini plants. But this year the infestation of brown marmorated stink bugs and squash bugs has been absolutely discouraging. I am a "newbie" when it comes to organic gardening, so having an infestation like this felt really devistating. Until reading about all the problems with stink bugs that were reported on this forum, I thought I was alone and doing something terribly wrong! They started on my zucchini plants and then seemed to "overnight" take over the pumpkin patch, gourds, tomatoes, cukes, and finally (although maybe it was something else)the eggplants. The stink bugs and squash bugs lived in harmony with Colorado potatoe beetles, all sharing the fruits of my labor! When the hurricaine came through last week, I decided not to continue trying to eradicate them, but to just pull everything out and start fresh next year. Too bad I didn't see this forum earlier, I don't think I have enough left to create a trap crop. One thing that seemed to work, although it was very short lived, was a mixture of 1 gallon of water, 2 Tbsp dish washing liquid and 2 tsp peppermint oil. This killed them on contact, but I imagine it would need to be applied on a reular basis, and I don't know how good it is to use the dish soap repeatedly. Thanks everyone, for the input and ideas. I'll make notes of what seems to work for others.

A few weeks ago, my fifteen year old granddaughter, the official garden photographer, and I were walking by some flowers when she called out to me "What's this thing?" Then "Here's another and another." She stopped, fascinated to observe that in the center of every coneflower and rudbeckia "Indian Summer" sat an ugly little bug, looking poised and ready for something important in the bug world. Since it was a couple of years short of 50 when I last attended college entomology class, I answered to Clare, "I think it's an assassin bug," and boy, I was dead wrong. On flower after flower, sat a lowly stink bug, probably wishing he were actually something exciting like an assassin bug. So herewith I give you Sir Stink on his throne, courtesy of Clare's photographic skills. Diane

Have not seen one BMSB here yet. Have seen only a handful of stinkbugs in general this year. Leafhoppers were about average, a couple hundred. SWD population is about half of last year, several hundred. A yellowjacket nest was disturbed when a neighbor's large fallen cherry limb was cut up; some of those wasps went into our front porch planter box. Water and poison spray took care of them. Oregonian article yesterday was about major efforts to keep Japanese beetle out of our area.