I love my pumpkins. After a good night’s rest I’ve decided that I won’t take it lying down.

Their demise that is.

In case you missed yesterday’s post, my nemesis the squash bug recently moved in. You can catch up here.

Female flower at the ready as a bee swoops in

Actually I did take one thing lying down: pictures. How else would I get a shot of the underside of the leaf and the attached eggs?

Squash bug eggs on the underside of a pumpkin leaf

Leaves, tendrils, flowers and…more eggs

In a word, yuck!

I laid flat on my back and took photos looking up. Fortunately, no one walked by at the time or they surely would have called the paramedics. Amazingly, I managed to get back up, then spent the better part of an hour looking at the underside of every leaf on the pumpkin vines.

That scrutiny lead to another discovery: eggs on some of the pumpkin plant stems. In the end I’d scooped several adult bugs into my dry bucket, along with infested leaves and stems. I removed dead or browning leaves as well as spent flowers, making it easier to detect the adult bugs  They were happy to crawl on my glove and from there they went into a bucket. I dumped the infested leaves and bugs into the curb side green waste site, and within an hour the ‘green monster’ came by and scooped the entire pile into the back of the truck. This was another tip from one of the sites: rip them out and compost them.

Infested stems and leaves

The lovely Pauline at The Contented Crafter looked up companion plantings for me, something I hadn’t thought of nor come across in my reading. Ah, the web is vast indeed.  There is enough room in the boxes for additional plantings so I’ll give it a try.  Nasturtiums unfortunately need opposing growing conditions, but dill might work. I’m going to look for some at the garden center.

It’s unlikely that I removed all the eggs this morning. I’m pretty sure others still lurk on the vine. With daily checks, however, I hope to slow them down and possibly keep them at bay.

Stay tuned.

Trailing the deck