Okay, here’s an interesting take on squash bug prevention that I recently read in one of my garden magazines. According to the article, it says that if you wrap the stem of your squash plants with aluminum foil, the squash bugs will not crawl up and over it to get to your plants. (This is assuming these critters don’t fly, right? Or leap from plant to plant.)
AWESOME! I mean, I had a tough spring season this year battling these bugs and I’m all for anything that will prevent them organically. Well you know I ran right out to my garden and try this new tactic. After all, I have pumpkins in process, squash and zucchini newly planted…. Why, I’m a veritable billboard for this technique! (And I do love to learn new methods for organic pest prevention in the garden.)
Grabbing the sheet of aluminum I used last night to cover my pork while reducing a delicious Thai sauce, I headed out to my garden prepared to “wrap and roll,” baby! We’d start with the pumpkins, I decided, since they were the largest and most at risk. Tearing the foil into strips, I squatted down and realized at once–we had a problem.
No, not a squash bug problem. A wrapping problem. Peering down at my sprawling pumpkin plant vining its way into adjacent rows I thought, “How in the heck am I going to be able to wrap it all?” We’re not talking one little stem that pokes up from the ground making this a simple procedure–no, no! We’re talking “I have pumpkin vines all over the ground and spreading!”
Now what?
Plan A, but with some modification. If the idea is to prevent the little beasts from crawling up and onto my plant, well then I was going to wrap as much stem as I feasibly could. At the least this should discourage them from running the length of my vines, right? Perhaps the shiny material will dissuade them altogether?
Hmph. I have no idea. This is an experiment in progress. Right now my outlook remains positive but check back in a month to see if this remains the case. 🙂
I had 180 pumpkin and squash this year and they eventually were devastated by those gray stink bugs. I thought they were aphids at first. If you discover anything that works…please let us know. All the organic folks said use a soap…like Ivory, with water. That killed only a few each time. They’re like zombies…they just keep coming!
Burying the vine (covering the vine with dirt from the garden) will not only protect it from its biggest pests but will also allow it to send down more roots which not only increases the chance of survival but will allow the plant to absord more water / nutrients for much bigger pumpkins or similar.
Absolutely!!