Squash Bugs

Here is information on squash bugs and getting rid of them.

Here is a squash bug I found on the pumpkin plant growing in the compost bucket.  Squash bugs have a needle like mouth (like a mosquito) They suck the nutrients out of the plant.  They can suck it out of any part of the plant, but I find them mostly at the base of the plant.

This is what I use to pick them up with.  I'm not about to touch them, so I take Hubby's pliers and pick them off the plants.
This is actually squash bug number two.  I only found one easily, so after I eliminated the first one I pored a two gallon bucket full of water into the compost bucket with the pumpkin plant and three more raced up the vines.

Here are a group of squash bug eggs.  They are usually where the veins meet on the bottom side of the leaves.

I tried to smash them with the pliers, but didn't get them all.  For some reason I can uses my bare fingers to smash the eggs, but not the bugs no matter what their size.

Another leaf with more eggs.  If the leaf has clusters of eggs at every intersection of veins I will sometimes just cut the entire leaf off and toss it into the trash.

This dead leaf and stock were lying on the ground, but still attached to the plant. I just pulled the entire thing off.

Check everywhere that is out of sight, this part of the plant has another plant leaning against it, so the eggs were hidden.

This plants leans sideways in the pot and this side is against the soil.  Search everywhere and smash those eggs.

I did not find any baby squash bugs.

Now for other ways to get rid of squash bugs:

This is a cucumber plant.
I put copper around the base of the plants.  I got a long length of sticky backed copper from my dad.  It is about 30 years old.  There is no sticky left on it, but the paper is dried to the back. I have no idea where you would find something like this now, especially at the current price of copper.

Here is a Blue Hubbard squash plant.
As you can see I put the copper strips very close to the base of the plants.  For some reason squash bugs will not cross over the copper.
Before I got the copper I tried several rows of pennies around the base of the plant and that did nothing.  So if you use pennies you need a lot.  My copper strips are about 3" wide.

Diatomaceous Earth can be sprinkled on the ground where any pesky bugs are. Diatomaceous earth is made from the fossilized remains of tiny aquatic organisms.  It is very fine like a powder, but actually has sharp edges all around it.  It causes insects to dry out and die by absorbing the oils and fats from the cuticle of the insect's exoskeleton. Its sharp edges are abrasive, speeding up the process. It remains effective as long as it is kept dry and undisturbed.
I got the information on Diatomaceous earth  HERE if you want more detail about it.
Diatomaceous earth works best on soft bodied insects.  The babies are soft bodied, but they develop a hard shell as they turn into adults.

Duct tape made into a loop around your fingers with the sticky side out can be used to pick up a large group of baby squash bugs quickly.  It doesn't work as well on the eggs that are next to the veins on the leaves and it can also pull off a chunk of leaf.

Dawn dish detergent added to water can be used to spray the eggs and baby squash bugs.  In a two quart bottle put no more than 1/2 inch of dish soap and the rest of the bottle filled with water and spray until the eggs and babies are soaked.  Spray early in the morning or late in the evening.  If the leaves turn brown where they were sprayed it is, because it was too hot and the leaf burned or there is too much detergent in the bottle.

You can also put damp rolled up sections of newspaper next to the plants and they will go under or in the paper.  This works really good for earwigs.  They go in there when it is dark.  First thing in the morning you have to get outside, pick up the paper and throw it in the trash.  If you don't get outside early enough they will have all left the newspaper.  This is my least favorite non-chemical way.

Insecticidal soap can be sprayed on them.  This works best of soft bodied bugs too.  You can make your own insecticidal soap, but my understanding is that the harder your water is the less effective the soap will be.  Someone give it a try and let me know your results.

If you are really desperate and feel like they have gotten beyond your control you can use Sevin.  I personally do not use this product.  You must read the label very carefully.  Produce sprayed with this product have a minimum number of days you must wait after spraying before the produce can harvested.  That is creepy to me.  The product does work though.

The best and easiest way to get rid of squash bugs is by having toads.  The toads will eat them all.  To keep a toad or two around you must have a cool, dry, damp, dark place for them to go to at all times.

Weeding June 17, 2015 and Quail Pictures.

All this wonderful rain has make the weeds grow.

Picture number 1.   This is on the right side of the pile of rocks close to the garden.

Picture number 2.   This in on the left side of the rocks close to the grass.

This spot at the edge of the asparagus and parsley had turned into a never ending battle.  It is mostly grass that spreads from rhizomes under the ground.

Picture number 4.   Not so bad here.  I think this is a good place to start.

Another place that isn't so bad.  I need to take more pictures so you can see how large the area actually is.

I used the hula hoe on every part of the yard I weeded.  I'm thinking that is is the equivalent of vacuuming the carpets in my entire house with the nozzle used for cleaning cracks and crevices.

 

Got them all hoed out.  Well maybe not.  Looks like more right where the hula hoe marks are. The areas hoed with the shadow of the mail box and glass door is the lowest area in our yard, so the weeds there got extra water.

Well I got the ones in the picture above now.  All the weeds are raked into a pile.  Did I miss these or did they grow in just a few minutes.  Okay time to hula hoe again.  This is right in back of the trailer.

Okay.  Hoed and raked again.  Really there are more?  This is worse than vacuuming the entire house with the crack and crevice nozzle.

Well I guess the third time is a charm.  Here are the weeds and some rocks from the first two pictures.

They are even growing in the cracks of the patio.  Well these got sprayed with vinegar.

I went outside and took pictures of the weed areas showing larger views.

 Here is a larger view of the area from picture number 4.

This is from the fence to the trailer.  You can see the trailer wheels in some of the above pictures.  You can also see the edge of the blue barrel that is also in picture number four which is not the same blue barrels as in the above picture.  LOL. Are you confused yet?  Maybe Hubby will take a picture from the roof. A good aerial view would explain it all.

We should really move this trailer back to the corner it belongs. We parked it here on May 16. Actually I'm kind of liking it where it is.  Sometime between 5 and 6:30 every morning there has been a cat fight under or in front of the trailer for the last several months.  That is until we used the trailer and didn't put it back.  I don't know were they are fighting now, but I am thrilled not to have that as my alarm clock now.

 Here is a picture from the left side of the trailer.  You can really see the low spot now.

Can you see all the green spots.  This is just 9 days later.  I still haven't cleaned up other piles of weeds and rocks.  It looks like it is time to start again.

 Picture number 16.   Old dead weeds waiting to be cleaned up and lots of new green weeds growing.

 Another mess of dead weeds, rocks, grapevine pieces, and cat poop to clean up.

This area of new weeds is part of the area I cleaned to make the pile in picture number 16.  More weeds are here too.

So here is why I really went outside and took more pictures of the yard.  As I was posting pictures and writing I looked out the window into my garden and saw the quail at work.
Here they are.

They moved before I got the picture taken from the window.  You can see daddy at the corner of the bed with the gray bucket and the black bucket?

Cropped the picture.  Can you find mommy quail?

Cropped it again.  Can you see here now?  She is between the buckets under the screen.

See what she did?  The first hole is on the left front side of the black bucket.  She was just starting to scrape the ground on the back left side of the gray bucket when I went outside and scared them out of the garden.  I am holding the screen up to take this picture.  When that was done I shifted the buckets over the plants and placed the screen flat on the ground and up tight against the squash plant to make it fit.

Here is where they went when I came outside.  They casually walked away like they were on a stroll and not fleeing the scene of a destruction mission.  Hubby was hoping the bowl she made was to lay eggs in.
Oh no.  I'm glad they hide their eggs.  I would be giving them away as food.  I don't want more garden wreckers in training being flaunted before me.  LOL.


I'll tell you about the buckets in the next post.  Hopefully it will be this weekend.

Garlic

June 10, 2015

Here are two views of the same garlic bed.  This garlic was planted August 13, 2014.  I looked beautiful in January and February.  Then the weather went crazy and I lost almost everything on the left side of the sprinkler line.  I replanted the left side sometime in March I think.  I used all the garlic I had left and ran out where the screen is.  The screen in there to keep the quail from making their little bowls to sit in and get cooled off.
The garlic on the right side of the bed were looking like they were going to die also.  I just kept watering them and hoped for the best.

Now it is June 16, 2015.  Just 6 days after the above pictures and the garlic never started to flower.  I just started dying.  The cloves are are double cloves.  I am guessing that this is because they almost died off and started growing again.  They are little, but at least I have some garlic to plant for next year.

Strawberries From My Garden

I have gotten out of the habit of blogging from not feeling well.  I guess that is as good of an excuse as any right?  Anyway I am going to do some catching up today.
All of these pictures were taken June 10, 2015.

I was surprised to see all of the strawberries form plants that were transplanted this year.

These are berries from plants that were transplanted last year.  Moving the plants into full sun again has made a big difference.  The trees have grown a lot and shade the old strawberry bed too much.

These are the berries from the picture above.

I have 5 or 6 places that look like this.  If I go out at the right time of day I can see all of the ants there also.  I will take care of the ant problem after the strawberries are all harvested.

These are strawberry plants put into the last bed about a month  ago.  There is another bed to the right of this that I had only half full last year.  It got filled this year too.

This is the tallest my plants have ever gotten.  These are last years transplants.

We had to add another layer of frames to be able to put the screens on top.  You can see that I didn't cover the back half of the last box in the center row.  The plants are so tall you can't see the strawberries, and that seems to be enough to keep the birds out.

Here is today's harvest.  The biggest harvest of the season. I wonder how much they weigh.

Got the scale set to zero with the empty strainer on it.

2.13 pounds.  I'm excited.  Now I wonder what they weigh when the stems and bug holes are removed.

2.08 Pounds.  Into the freezer they go with the other ones already in there.  They will be made into strawberry rhubarb jam.