Recipe for garden cleanup spray needed

Recently I saw a recipe for a homemade garden cleanup spray, but can't remember where. It contained three simple ingredients, including household ammonia and I believe dish washing soap. I've looked at dozens of threads and my searches come up with food recipes or housecleaning info.

My problem is I had the hughest infestation of squash bugs that took out my lovely vines in a couple of days. I've never seen so many bugs of one type in so many sizes congregated in one place, and I used to live in FL. When I first saw them, I used a sharp spray of water to get them off the plants. That must have made them mad, because they returned with an army. I had a spray bottle of Safer's Insecticidal Soap that was about 1/3 full and used that as judiciously as possible to try to get only the squash bugs, and no bees or other non-squash bugs. There are plenty of squash bugs still out there and I'm out of Safer's. I made a mix of water, a little soap, few drops of olive oil, and windex (no ammonia in the house) and they didn't like that.

I'm trying to be a non-chemical gardener, hoping that a beneficial insect (or birds or anything) would get rid of the pests, but it doesn't look like there is a predator willing to take on this hoard of ugly bugs. So I guess my question is multiple: 1) How do I keep these things away?; 2) Would you bag the vines (which look like bunches of dirty rags on a line) or can they be composted?; and do you have a recipe for a homemade remedy that can be used with discretion to deal with such an infestation? I am so ticked off I could spit.

Try doing a search for recipes homemade insect sprays instead of garden cleanup and you'll find gobs and gobs of them. Add the term ammonia if you specifically want one that contains ammonia or squash bugs if you want one that will kill that particular bug. The soap is just to help it stick to the leaves.

Never compost anything that is infested with insects or a disease. That's a good way to help the bugs or diseases stay in your garden.

I should have been more specific. Make sure you dispose of anything that's infested with bugs or disease. Either bag it up or burn it.



This message was edited Aug 4, 2008 2:02 PM

They can be horrendous- I had them bad two years ago, so bad I made sure not to grow any kind of gourds or squash the next year. I used Safer soap but it didn't seem to hurt them. I have a fresh start this year and am triyng to keep up with handpicking.

They seem to like gourds the best. If you had room to have a sacrificial gourd plant, it might help your other cucurbits? just a theory.

Sally, These things were ravenous and they multiplied seemingly overnight, so it was one big sacrafice. I had pumpkins and squashes in two different areas. One bed took a bigger hit, but as soon as they got done there, they started in on the second bed. I think you are right about skipping a year. That's what I'm going to do. This is my first year here and first to grow pumpkins/squashes. I really wasn't sure what the bugs were when I first saw them. I had seen them in FL, but surprisingly only a few and they didn't seem to do any damage. I never had gourds or pumpkins in FL. I did get about 5 veggies, 3 small pumpkins, a cheese wheel, and some big green Japanese pumpkin. There were beautiful flowers until the hungry hoard came, so I had some beauty and learned a lesson. Guess that's all one can ask. Thank you for your help. You stay up late 2:08!

I've never had a terrible problem with them but have always heard floating row covers work. So I looked and found this - some very helpful info here. Apparently diatomaceous earth is a good control. You can find DE in the garden section at Lowes.

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/squash-bug-control.html

If trying to handpick. also watch for the pearly golden-bronze tiny seed clusters. I'm finding them on the tops of leaves as well as the bottom that they supposedly prefer. I don't have allday to scour the plants for adults, but I easily find one or two pairs of adults a day. I must be missing them in the baby stage.
If you have gotten some mature fruit by this time, it may be best if you gather all the vines, bag them and send them to the dump, or burn them. Roast, you little devils ah ha ha ha!!

Hart, I wish I'd known about planetnatural when I was trying to guess what those little brown things were on the leaves. I might have been able to stop the major infestation. I feel rather sheepish because I'm not new to gardeing, but I thought they were some kind of butterfly egg. The row cover is a good idea and the web site looks interesting for other solutions. Thank you.

Sally, As I said to Hart above, I saw those egg clusters everywhere, top and bottom. DH and I did bag the vines and he took them off to the recycling center, a.k.a. the dump. Sure am glad you experienced DG'ers are here. Thank you.

Pam

You can buy floating row covers here by the foot (29 cents a running foot) or prepackaged here. Very good prices. Be sure to send for a catalog too, they have the neatest seeds at good prices.

http://www.superseeds.com/products.php?cat=298

Yay Pinetree seeds- my fave Probably some things on summer sale now or soon.
I found a whole bunch of squash bugs on my zucchini yesterday- finally lookd UNDER those leaves. They didn't show damage the same way the gourds did.

Diane, You know some of the neatest on-line gardening locations. I don't think I've ever seen Pinetree before and I did request a catalog. I grew my first flowers from seeds this past winter--mostly morning glories, cleome, cosmos, and fennel, easy things, but our CSA has gorgeous cut flowers grown from seeds started in their hoop house, many of which Pinetree has seeds for. I'm going to try again and be a little more adventurous.

Sally, Our CSA has had problems with the squash bugs, but we still got plenty of zuccs and yellows. I haven't asked the farmer what he used to keep them at bay because he's always out in the field when we pick up. I wonder how the weather affects squash bugs. We haven't had rain in 6 weeks and it is crispy out there. Fortunately, we did not get the 100 degrees predicted thanks to the cloud cover. The Weather Channel says rain, but the local tv guys say no way. It's all going to Richmond and east.

Pam

Hmm- I was in Frederick MD yesterday and thought the lake was pretty low and stream small.. 'Splains it.
I found a bunch more nymphs today. No time to deal with it.

Be sure to check out their vegetable seeds too. I love the section with European, Middle Eastern and other seeds.

By the way, this place is a fantastic bargain for seeds because they send HUGE packets with about 100 times what's in a regular seed packet. Well, maybe not that much but you'll see what I mean if you order seeds. Lots of nifty Italian vegetables and some flower seeds too.

https://growitalian.com/Qstore/Qstore.cgi

I had them last year, I had no idea what they were and I've grown pumpkins and gourds before, not a lot but every so often and had never seen them on any of my plants. Yuck! Yuck! They are back again this year, I don't think I will grow anything that vines like that for a while. They do seem to appear from no where. Last year I had these great looking plants and then one day I noticed that they looked a little wilty, just kind of like they needed a little water. Then bang they looked terrible and were covered with thousands of these horrid bugs. They are really hard to kill, too. I don't have any qualms about using insecticide and even the heavy duty stuff didn't get rid of them all. I really think that the key is to stop them early which is what the floating cover does.
Pic from last year. Nasty, Nasty things.

HollyAnn, Lovely picture lol. Thank you all for the advice and informtion. I have cleaned up the vines and disposed of them and in just a couple of days, the ugly buglies have all but disappeared from the garden. I guess they're kind of particular of what they eat, and that suits me just fine. IF I grow squashes next year, it will only be with row cover and after some serious internet research into growing the vegetable.

Well, I think I just need a break from any vining plant for a while. We let our Veggie garden go back to nature and have only seriously started to clean it up in the last year or so. There are still a lot of perennial weeds around the edges and the raspberries need serious cutting back. I have been growing pumpkins and gourds just for fun and fall decorating off and on I would just clean a little spot and then let them grow in the weeds. Then I would pick whatever was good and leave the rest to reseed. I think I would like to have a neat orderly Veggie garden for a little while and that means no vines for a little bit.

Holly, I hear ya. The moment those vines were attacked, my two puny beds looked so shabby--and not at all chic.