Monthly Archives: July 2011

Controlling Squash Bugs in the Garden

By Dennis on July 14, 2011

A friend of mine from high school just reached out to me on my personal FB account and asked for some advice on controlling squash bugs because he had seen some of my posts related to my vegetable garden. I wrote him a response back, but then thought some of you may have the same questions.  So, I am reposting the letter I sent to him in hopes that you may benefit.

Hey Don,

Yeah I garden.  Like a fool!  It is kinda part of my job and part hobby.  My kids accuse me of being one of those people who when asked what time it is, teach people how to build a watch.  So, forgive me if I get long-winded. 

First, I am not sure what stage your squash bugs are, if they are still in the nymph stage or are full blown adults.  If they are full grown adults, control with chemicals is difficult, if not impossible.

Either way it is going to be work AND tedious.

Controlling nymphs and eggs.  Get a bucket of soapy water.  2-3 drops of any household dish soap in a gallon bucket is sufficient.  Walk around to the plants and look under the leaves (particularly those with damage) and look for eggs/nymphs.  Squash the eggs with your hands; knock the nymphs into the bucket of water, they will die quickly.  This process is made a bit more difficult because the nymphs will tend to scatter quickly when threatened. At this stage, the bugs are easiest to control.

Controlling adults – Sevin (I use liquid Sevin, but usually only once a year when insects are at their peak, and it is my ‘nuclear option’ so I can control things as organically as possible.) will control some of them but it will also kill bees, lady bugs, and other beneficial.  For this reason spray only when the flowers are closed (early morning, late evening) to limit impact on pollinators.

The best control methods are:

  1.  Keep as much plant debris cleaned up, remove dead leaves from the plant and make the environment as inhospitable as possible for them.
  2. Lay a shingle or piece of wood next to each plant in the evening.  As night falls, the squash bugs will congregate under the object as a hiding/nesting spot.  Then in the morning you can go and turn the wood/shingle over and easily collect the adults and either squash them by hand (they will stink similar to stink bugs) or knock them into a bucket of soapy water.
  3. Keep the plants well watered and well fertilized (this time of year use a low-to moderate N fertilizer with higher levels of  P & K; Monty’s 2-15-15 or Monty’s 4-15-12 are excellent and easy options). This will accomplish several things:
  • Insects are opportunists.  If you have ever watch an animal show on the discovery network, you know that the lion will cut the weak or the lame out from the herd because they are easier to bring catch and bring down. Same thing. Insects will attack your weakest plants first.  I don’t know how they know this, but they do.  (This is also a chance to learn from the bugs, they are telling you stuff about your garden.  So keeping them well fed, and well watered will keep them strong and make them less vulnerable.
  • High Brix levels, the measurement of the amount of sugars in a plants also seem to deter insects.  Don’t know why, just know in side by side studies that I have done, those plants with higher brix have less insect damage.
  • Squash plants grow very quickly and can easily grow past any damage done by a squash bug. Making sure they are healthy, well fertilized and well watered will help this.

My favorite control method is to do nothing.  That’s right.  I said do nothing.  Here’s why.  Once the plants are up and growing normally (controlling the bugs in the early stages of plant growth is imperative), there is not much the bugs can do to stop them.  The bugs tend to feed on the leaves, not the fruit – especially until the end of the season when the leaves are starting to wilt naturally.  By then I have enough squash put up to get me through the winter anyway, so any fruit I harvest after that is just gravy. Squash plants grow so rapidly that the impact of any one or even several bugs is going to be minimal and is easy for the plants to keep up with. Squash bugs have sucking/piercing mouth parts. Because fo this, they do not eat away your leaves like caterpillars or beetles do. These wounds will kill the leaves in the immediate area, so they will look spotty, but unless your plants are very small or your infestation is extremely large they just can’t do enough damage to prvent the flow of enough nutrients to impede plant/fruit development. Basically, the work required for complete control, for the benefits, attained just isn’t worth it to me. 

So to summarize, your options are: 

  • Scout and control manually with a bucket of soapy water.
  • Lay out a shingle or piece of wood each evening, collect and destroy the adults in the morning.
  • Use sevin or other labeled control as a nuclear option, use it in the evening or early morning once the flowers have closed to limit the impact on beneficial insects and pollinators like honeybees.
  • Keep them well-fed (fertilized), watered, and generally healthy.

OR

  • Do nothing once your plants are matured.  They won’t eat much, really

BTW…I don’t know if you do this or not…but I have found out this season that the male flowers from the squash plant are delicious!  Harvest one or two this evening and enjoy a squash blossom quesadilla or dip them in a relleno batter and fry them.  (You can also stuff them like a stuff bell pepper, roll them and either bake them, or dip them in batter and fry them.

Happy growing, and enjoy the NM sunshine, I know your squash are!

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What To Do with Over-grown Summer Squash

By Dennis on July 12, 2011

I was SO mad at myself!  I had been looking forward to the simple buttery taste and texture of summer squash ever since I first planted the hills this spring. The plants had grown beautifully..with the help of Monty’s 8-16-8 and Monty’s 2-15-15. Then, I got distracted.  Then rain kept me out of my garden.  Meanwhile the squash kept growing.  Literally by inches a day.  I now have over a dozen behemoths like those pictured here.

The normal-sized squash and zuchini in the foreground are included as a reference and perspective as to how large these garden gargantuans actually are. They are over 12" in circumference and upto 20" long!

I was bound and determined NOT to waste these so I called the fount of all things useful: MOM.  Mom told me that I could cut into the big ones and see if they are still somewhat tender, read that “usable” and if the seeds were still small (a good indication that the flesh is not going to be grainy and mealy.) She also said I could dry these seeds so that I would not have to buy seeds next year.  Both were good suggestions, but would not help me use the sheer volume of giant squash and zucchini.

So I went on a search. Did you know there are very few web pages or other sources of information on what to do with overgrown squash?  But then, I finally found one.  Thank you to my new friends at www.veggiegardener.com !  Because of them, I now have a recipe for my over-zealous gourds and I wont have to waste them.  Check out the recipe, here.

As for the little fellows that I am now harvesting.  They have a date with my wife; tonight, we make squash pickles!  I’ll post that recipe later.

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Ask Monty’s 7/11/11: Coneflowers, Turnips, and Buggered by Broccoli Plants

By Dennis on July 11, 2011

Ask Monty’s: “I planted an awesome hosta bed under my old oak trees in a section of my yard and then dropped in some coneflowers behind them to add some color and height.  The first year everything was pretty well on their way to settling in and growing well.  The second year the coneflowers did okay, but this third year the hostas were outstanding and the coneflowers appeared to have all died, except for one lonely clump trying to hang on.  What happened here? 

Chevy – Topeka, Kansas

Chevy: You sort of lucked out getting those coneflowers to bloom at all.  The fact that your hostas are doing so well tells me the area is quite shaded –a hosta environment that they thrive in.  Coneflowers are a true wildflower and grow best in full sunny, well drained soil.  Your coneflowers are sun lovers and shade is not the place for them.

Ask Monty’s:  “I didn’t get around to planting my turnips this spring and was wondering if it’s too late to plant them now in July?”

Deann – Wiota, Wisconsin

Deann:  The one nice thing about turnips is that about the time other vegetables in your garden are winding down, turnips are turning out tasty tops and yummy meaty bulbs.  While often planted in the spring, if you want a winter crop they are best sowed in July or early August.  Late plantings are also less susceptible to turnip root maggot damage too.  If you decided to plant both a spring and summer turnip patch next year, they do make good companions for onions and peas in the garden, so keep that in mind.  But back to your question – plant those turnips now!

  Ask Monty’s: “I planted broccoli from seeds this year and it seemed to take forever for anything to come up.  The seeds were so small it was impossible to keep from getting them too thick in the furrows.  It was a nightmare and now they’ve all grown up and I’ve started pulling them out so there is more room between them to develop.  I don’t think I’ll ever plant them again?”

Stephanie – Nappanee, Indiana 

Stephanie: Don’t give up on your broccoli endeavors yet!  Wait until you taste that first fresh head and realize how much your effort paid off.  But yes, planting by seed directly into the ground is a test of patience for those little, bitty seeds like radishes, carrots and celery as well to name a few.  If a person has the room, sowing the seeds inside in early spring in trays gives you a major head start and gives the little plants a good head start after you’ve weeded out the ones that got too close together.  You can also buy seed strips that have the seeds on a biodegradable material and, pre-spaced that you just lay down in the furrow, cover with dirt and wait for them to come up. They’re a little pricey, but definitely easier. Since I only plant for small family usage, I do buy the plants already started in the spring from my local greenhouse.  They come in four or six packs with a good head start, so putting them directly in the soil where they need to be is a lot less stressful for me. I’m not much for seed starting either, but have to have that broccoli in my garden! 

One last note on broccoli, don’t expect to see them with the large softball sized heads that you see in the grocery store.  Those are grown by farmers and usually with a volume of chemicals and fertilizers that you, as a home gardener, would neither want, need, afford, or be able to attain.  The heads will be smaller, but sweeter and, overall, better than their mass produced-counterparts. Plant your heads plants in the ground about two per week until you’ve planted the deisred number or have filled your row.  By doing this you will extend your growing season and have fresh-from-the-garden broccoli for several weeks.  If doing that requires too much patience, then you can plant them all at once, just be prepared to preserve them.  Borccoli do well in the freezer if they are par-boiled for about 2 minutes, run under cool water, dried as well as possible then cut into florets and frozen in zip-top baggies.

Oh, and don’t forget, like the turnips and other veggies metnioned above…broccoli and cauliflower can start going in the ground in the last third of July in the far Northern US through late August in the Deep South (check with local county agents for exact timing) for wonderful fresh fall veg crops.

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Ask Monty’s 7/6/11: Veggies for Novices, Something Dandy about Dandelions, and Swiss Chard

By Dennis on July 6, 2011

Ask Monty’s: “People make dandelion wine out of the weed’s flowers, but an old-timer recently told me you can eat the leaves too. Is this true?”

Heidi
Boalsburg, Pennsylvania

Heidi:Yes, the entire dandelion is edible despite its bad rap as a common yard weed. It’s an acquired taste and most recently I discovered a recipe in a copy of an old Mother Earth News magazine for dandelion greens sautéed in olive oil and molasses and served over a baked potato. The flower is also used as an edible garnish in many upper end restaurants, despite it’s number one popularity as a wine ingredient.

Ask Monty’s: “What is Swiss Chard exactly? Is it easy to grow? I’ve been told it tastes a lot like spinach, but it doesn’t look like it.”

Susan
Caney, Kansas

Susan: Swiss Chard is the forerunner of beets and a close cousin to spinach. In the kitchen, cooked chard can stand in for spinach in any recipe, while the crisp ribs of the plant can be steamed or grilled like asparagus. The beauty of chard as a garden plant is that chard tolerates light frost as well as the heat of summer. There are three types of chard I would recommend you take a closer look at. White-stemmed chard out performs their more colorful counterparts in terms of productivity and resistance. Bright colored varieties are the top of the line edible ornamentals when it comes to vegetables, but perpetual varieties have thinner stems and smaller, smoother leaves than large varieties, but they taste more like spinach than the other varieties. With perpetual varieties the more leaves you pick, the more new ones emerge from the crowns, thus reflected in their name.

Ask Monty’s: “If you had to name the top five easiest vegetables to grow, what would they be? I’m a new gardener, so I am going to need some instant gratification to keep my confidence level up. What vegetables do you think make the best use of time and garden space?”

Ronald
Golden, Colorado

Ronald:  Gardening is always an exploration of trial and error because everyone’s garden habits, patience levels and environments are different, so please keep that in mind. It’s a very rewarding hobby, great contribution to your grocery bill and creates an enormous amount of satisfaction when you take that first bite out of that garden fresh tomato, green bean or squash.

That said, regarding your questions there has been a lot of research done on these particular subjects and they do vary from region to region. Research tells me radishes, lettuce, bush snap beans, rhubarb and cherry tomatoes are listed as the top five. For me, radishes and lettuce took a few tries before I finally got it right, so my picks would be bush snap beans, rhubarb, cherry tomatoes, asparagus and green peppers. Squash is pretty easy too, but does take up a lot of room. I even slip my green pepper and broccoli into my flower beds as nice green back drops to other plants and utilize the space that way.

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