Alas, the creepy-crawlies are once again beginning their assault on the garden. Squash bugs infest, as you might have guessed, members of the squash family, to wit, Zucchini. Also pumpkin, but that's not a big problem for me because I don't grow pumpkins.
The life cycle of the squash bug is basically to come out of hiding when the Zucchini plants start to flower, lay loads of small coppery oval eggs in the wedges between the veins on the underside of the leaves, which then hatch into a load of absurd lime-green pinheads with black legs, which then molt into grey things, and then become the black thing you see pictured above, all in about 6-8 weeks. At which point they mate, restart the cycle, and any bugs that make it to adulthood by early fall then scurry away and hide in the underbrush until next spring/summer.
If you manage to kill all the adults at the start of the season, you should hopefully get a pretty good start on nipping the problem in the bud, or at least until the next generation flies in from the neighbor's.
Last week, I saw two mating on my plants for the first time, then the next day I found about 15, then 2, then 1, and today, none. So I would guess that right now is a good idea for people in Almaden Valley to be checking their Zucchini plants for these bugs.
The simplest way to find them is to water the plants in a decent shower; the bugs then like to climb the stems to get away from the water at ground level, and you get to see them more easily on the stems and under the leaves, and their movement helps too. They are easily killed, and the name "squash bug" finds a double entendre in my garden. I have read that watering the plants with water including squashed bugs helps to repel others, but I have also read that you shouldn't squash the bugs because they release a pheromone that attracts more. While it is true that they stink (I find it a slightly pleasant smell, but I can understand how others might consider it a "stink" bug), I have no idea if this affects populations. In the end, I decided that attracting more is not a bad thing, because it means I get to squash more of the population in the area at once. But the jury is out as to whether it makes any difference. If you don't like squashing, just drown in soapy water.
However, it is CRUCIAL to not let these breed. Once they breed, you have hundreds of these larvae things running everywhere, and these bugs kill the plants as they lacerate and block juice tubes in the plant. The leaves wither and die, and finally, the last few Zucchini are covered in these pests. So act with haste and pre-emption. Inspect your plants now, kill the adults, then continue to inspect the leaf undersides for masses (about 25 in each) of coppery eggs, and squash or cut these out and destroy. For now, every time you water the plants, look closely at the plants immediately after and look for these bugs.
My Zucchini season started today, when I picked a fairly small one. It didn't seem to be growing rapidly, maybe because it wasn't fully pollinated, or maybe because the plants don't have enough energy yet, so I just broke it off and ate it. I see more following. Cherry tomato, blackberry and apricot seasons are also at their start right now. So far, its only the early outliers, but it harbinges well. Is that even a word? Harbinges? If there is a harbinger, it must harbinge, right?
