Hi All,
I am getting really frustrated. I need to grow things organically for reasons I will not go into: just know that growing organically is the only option.
I currently have two plants in my little garden that are members of the squash family: three heirloom cocozella zucchini, one hybrid zucchini, and nine lemon cucumbers.
Two years ago, squash bugs destroyed all my zucchini plants. At the time I did not know what was happening. When I figured it out, it was too late. I let the ground go fallow for a year.
Yesterday when I harvested a large cocozella and went to wash it up, four little bastards came crawling away from the stem end. They looked like gray funnels: legs on the big section; nose on the small section; no round head like a stink bug. (They all met a nearly instantaneous, ignominious fate similar to a bug hitting a wind shield.)
Looking up squash bugs on the Internet, these little bastards looked more like hollyhock weevils, which I do have on my hollyhocks. (I control my hollyhock weevils by spraying them with chrysanthemum spray when they get out of hand and I cut the stocks down and throw them in the trash every year at the end of flower season.)
Here is what really drives me nuts: all the organic farmers in the area have row after row of squash and NO little bastards! They are not out there spraying chemicals on their plants! Why is it I can not keep my bugs away!
Researching on he Internet, folks recommend Neem oil a lot. Not sure any king of oil would do my plants well with the 100 degree F weather we are having. And, insecticidal soap. Both of them, you have to disturb the plant so you can spray everywhere. And, both kill any perpetrators that may be preying on the little bastards.
Speaking of predators, is there some carnivorous critter I can unleash in my garden that likes to eat herbivore bugs? My local greenhouse advertises they have an "insectary".
I am really frustrated. I can not loose another garden to these little bastards!
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
-T