How To Prevent Squash Bugs From Overwintering In Your Garden Soil

If you've ever carefully cultivated squash or pumpkin vines only to have your hopes of scrumptious pies and casseroles dashed by squash bugs, you know how destructive they can be. These pests feed on cucurbits, including pumpkins, squash, and cucumbers. To make matters worse, they can overwinter in your garden, lying in wait for you to plant a new crop in the spring. Once you do, they'll emerge and start feeding on the tender young plants, which are most vulnerable to an infestation. In addition to feeding off of your plants, squash bugs can infect them with yellow vine decline, a disease that kills off your plants approximately two weeks before they reach maturity.

To tackle the problem, you need to take a multi-pronged approach to getting squash bugs out of your garden, including during the off-season. If you eliminate them from your garden in winter, you'll reduce the chances that they'll attack your plants when they're most vulnerable the following spring. Squash bugs hide out in plant debris and soil, so you need to disrupt their environment to get rid of them. You can do this by rotating your crops, cleaning up debris, getting rid of old vines, and using the right kind of mulch. Add these tasks to your ultimate fall to-do list for the garden of your dreams. 

Planting your squash or pumpkins in the same place every year encourages squash bugs to hang around. They have a ready-made food source waiting for them after a long winter. To combat this, change up where you grow your cucurbits to deter pests. Plant vegetables from a completely different family in the plot, such as beans, since plants from the same family are typically susceptible to the same pests.

You should also get rid of dead, infected vines. Clear them out of your garden and burn them after harvesting the fruit. Removing the vines as quickly as possible prevents the squash bugs from fattening up enough to survive the winter. Never add these diseased plants to your compost pile since this provides an ideal habitat for them to overwinter. While you're cleaning out your vines, remove any other type of garden debris, including straw or hay mulch. When you plant next season, use wood chips or plastic mulch instead. To thwart any squash bugs that have survived despite your best efforts, cover your newly planted squash vines with breathable row covers. This prevents the adults from feeding on the plants and mating to begin another generation. When your vines start flowering, take the covers off so pollinators can get to the blossoms.