I arrived home Wednesday night to the news that Mr. Gordon had to pick off at least a quarter of the leaves on one of our beautiful zucchini plants.
They had yellowed and died in the span of one day.
Mr. Gordon did a little research online: squash bugs.
The next morning he investigated. Yup – looks like they have been busy laying eggs on a lot of leaves. Yuk. They hatch and drain the leaves of nutrients. So last night he went through all the leaves, removing the eggs and killing them. He also found quite a few of squash bugs (I think they are the same as what we call stink bugs around here) and they met their end. Good!
He also sprayed soapy water on the bottom of the leaves just in case he missed any eggs – that should help. This weekend we are going to look into making some organic pesticides (recipe from Rodale’s Chemical-Free Yard & Garden book) to spray on the plants. These homemade pesticides will be consisting of ingredients like garlic oil, cayenne pepper, etc. Nothing toxic for humans!
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We’ll report in and let you know how it goes! Hopefully your gardens are doing well!
(Update: I went outside this afternoon… dang it – more eggs laid! Little @&#%$!)
Teeny, tiny eggs – big problem.
Scraping off the eggs.
Here Mr. Gordon is trying to scrape off the eggs with a Popsicle stick. Then he squished them between two pieces of wood. He said he also killed about a dozen adult squash bugs.
Where he couldn’t scrape the eggs away, he decided to gently tear a little piece of the leaf away.
And just in case you need to know what they look like…
Gross little buggers, aren’t they? Mr.Gordon is preparing to go to battle with some homemade insecticide.
Okay, enough of that… look at the beautiful beets!
Anyone else just stare in wonder and think: this is just so beautiful. Look at those colors!
Ready to Pick
I’m thinking this weekend, fresh beets for at least one meal!
And there you have it.
How is it going for you?
Are you dealing with garden pests? Any remedies you can recommend as worthwhile to try?
Let me know you popped on by! Click in the comment box to get started!