Light green colored bugs on my summer squash blooms

I see tons of little yellow green bugs on my summer squash blooms. They seem to go away once the flower blooms and start shriveling away, but boy there are tons of these on opened/newly opened blooms.

Are they harmful? Should I do something about them? If I do need to do something, can you tell me an organic solution if you know of any?

I took a photo and the bugs look really big in the photo but they are actually only about 2mm (slightly smaller than a grain of rice.)

As far as I can tell, the plants are healthy and doing really well, bearing fruit and all (except one but I think the problem is with pollination since some of the squashes didn't get big.)I


Thanks for your help!

tmm

These look like aphids to me. Usually soap spray does the job. Or you can use a jet of water to wash them off and they get eaten by bigger, scarier bugs on the ground. Although I'm not sure how the jet of water would affect your blossoms.

Looks more like squash bug nymphs to me. Also looks like a fairly recent hatch. You should keep an eye out for orange-ish colored eggs on the undersides of leaves. (As the temps warm up you can also see them being laid on the tops of leaves.)

Soap spray with a bit of rubbing alcohol added will zap them but don't use too much alcohol (and don't spray in the direct sun).

My insect knowledge is such that, even after doing google image searches on both, I think your photo looks like aphids AND squash bug nymphs. :) Good thing treatment is similar! Anyway, once the ID is definite, tmm, you need to get that photograph into "Garden Terms." Gorgeous!

http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/CritterFiles/casefile/insects/bugs/leaffooted/leaffooted.htm#squash

(shows the nymphs on this site)

Zeppy,

I agree, the photo turned out really well. It gives me the creeps seeing these critters magnified in size like that.

Thank you for the URL. I am really terrible with bugs and all the photos made me feeling like barfing. Yuck!! They look like alians to me.

Horseshoe,

I am dreading to check the underside of leaves... I hope I won't find too many of these critters. Wherever I find them, I will try water jet as cMoxin suggested. I will just try to hit already closed blossoms first and see how it works.

Thanks a bunch everyone.

tmm

I squashed over twenty squash bugs today. On three plants! They were breeding and laying eggs. Most eggs I squashed, one leaf I just removed because i couldn't get them to smoosh just right! And my plants are barely up! Tomorrow, I am taking some boards over there to put near the squash. I have been told, that if you turn the board over, esp in the AM, they will be there, and then you squash them right on the board. They are difficult to smoosh on the soft dirt, and two flew away as I tried to move them. I remember last year Horseshoe telling me that they don't like water, so to find them, spray everything down, they will come out to dry in the sun! Good luck!

Thank you Tamara!

You know what, I went to a nursery right at the closing time (hoping they can direct me to some natural spray or something) and they didn't let me in (It was 3 minutes after 6. Only 3 minutes late), so I came home thinking I will just hose these critters down and you know what? I saw much fewer numbers of aphids. And I saw a LADYBUG! I read somewhere that ladybugs love aphids? Maybe my beautiful ladybug had a feast on these critters.

I think the first thing I will do if I see many aphids again is to hose them away and pray some ladybugs will come visit my garden!

tmm

BTW, Tamara,

You are brave! You said "I squashed over twenty squash bugs today." I don't know what's wrong with me but these critters scare me. I can deal with catepillars here and there. Spiders are fine, but some of the other bugs look so gross to me, especially when I see a bunch of them at once. I get the upchuck feeling looking at photos of these too.

I used to play with all these critters when I was a kid though.

Oh, BTW, I brought up enough courage to check out the underside of leaves but they were OK. Maybe those critters just like blooms since they are really tender.

tmm

thank your lucky stars those are aphids! look here for some companion plants to repel them:

http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html

also, plant some things that ladybugs like, or that repel the ants that herd the aphids. You might consider sunflowers, they can take a lot of aphids, it may keep them off your other stuff...

I was a little squeamish, but mostly not gonna let them have my garden! After those two flew away, I got tired of takin gthem over to a hard place to squish them, so I used my GLOVED fingers, yuck!

Do keep an eye out for the squash bugs, and for their little eggs too, heeheehee!

Keep on hosing~Tamara

"Photos made me feeling like barfing"....hah! Grinnin' here! The insect world sure is a weird place to visit, eh TMM? ;>)

Zeppy, yes, thanks...that's a great site with good pics! Will have to save that one.

Thank you for the interesting link about companion plants.
I guess there are tons of ways to deter those critters!

tmm