I want dill pickles, lots of them. Pickled gherkins. Baby cucumbers in cider vinegar with a little dill. We eat them all winter. But there is a wicked little insect that is determined to thwart my attempts to fill the cellar with pickles. You know the bug that burrows into the stem of all kinds of cucurbits. Cucumbers, zuchinni, acorn squash – that whole family. It lays its eggs, the larvae eats into the main stem and then KILLS the plant. What a dumb insect. It has a name but I have forgotton it. We just call it the bad bug. He is grey with a triangular head, is more commonly found out here in the midwest and I hate him.
The good news is Diatomaceous Earth kills him. Though you should begin to dust the plant before the bug comes. Almost all organic pest management schemes are pro active. But it is also a pretty good deterrent. If this dust gets that nasty little insect when he lands as a flying insect it will be vamoosed. Once the larvae is in the stem life is more difficult. 
You know how people say you only need one or two zuchinni plants in your garden and you will still be trying to give them away.. not so here.. at the Farmy and at Greg’s we have trouble with the bad bug. So Greg – just get a sieve and dust your plant frequently.
Make sure it is food grade. I desperately want to make pickles but I think that while I was away the Bad Big got into my cucumbers. I am going to resow, you never know, we may get a long summer.
They say to put fresh newspaper around the base of plant . Net the plants when they are little. Keep the roots of the plant cool. Also be very careful to rotate your plants out of infected soils.
There is still one cuc hanging on. Fingers crossed.
Mama and Tilly hanging out in the barn.
While I was busy elsewhere I forgot to thin the peaches and we have an enormous crop of very tiny peaches.
So as an experiment I have begun a peach liqueur. I got this idea from The Garden Correspondent, Siobhan, who makes cherry liquer every year. I am not sure about my recipe. I figured the more vodka the better. So I am going to have to make a few more batches, just to try out a few different recipes you understand. I will let you know how it goes. If you have a recipe I would love to hear about it. I have a LOT of tiny peaches. The piglets love them too.
Good morning. I hope you all have a lovely day.
your friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
61 responses to “Diatomaceous earth kills the bad squash eating bug”
Bad bugs Good peaches.
I know what you mean about bugs! There seems to be so many this year. Have opened up a lot of my veggie plots to the chickens so they can do their thing.
Anything with Vodka is OK with me – in fact it really is the only hard stuff I drink as I never get the morning after feeling with it. Peach Vodka sounds yummy. Might try that next year with my strawberries and raspberries, what do you think?
I have only done fruit in brandy. Delish! The vodka sounds great as well!
Around here we just call those bugs stem bores. We have never tried the diatomaceous earth, but I will put that on the list. We have not gotten our usual garden in this year, I am afraid, so I am going to have to depend on our farmer’s market this summer!
Celi – I like that concept. MORE VODKA. How can it possibly fail. V.
something gave my cukes wilt and i had to take two whole plants out. i’m not sure if the others will make it. i only got 2 cucumbers so far. all i have are male blossoms on my zucchini. i don’t understand where the female ones are. i keep waiting but so far nothing.
I hope you win the war on those wicked bugs! We have been battling them too. I’m on my second planting of squash and cucumbers, obviously I’m not winning yet!
The squash bugs have already wiped out my zucchini. I suspect that my patty pan and crook necks will succumb to the mean grey pests next. I destroyed as many of the copper colored egg patches as I could find before leaving the farm for the city 2 days ago. I hate not being there to stop the spread. Funny thing is that I have only ever seen two adult squash bugs in the garden. They must hide where I am not looking. Your dusting tip need to stay in my head for next year. That’s the challenge. Especially if I start soaking my excess peaches left from canning in vodka.
No squash bugs yet this year – knock wood – but I’ve lost whole crops to them, too…might explain why I have more than a dozen cucumber plants 🙂 Covering the ground with the newspapers seems to help, but best before the adults emerge to lay the new eggs…
The peaches look wonderful…our local ones won’t start until August.
Ooh I hope you can can banish that Bad Bug. I’ve always liked the sound of diatomaceous earth (although it always gave me the impression that it would feel prickly if you breathed it in by mistake). I am also a great lover of brandied peaches, especially on a winter night. (I like this recipe that my mom clipped and sent to me one year.) But I am very curious to see how the liqueur turns out — I wonder which formula will be the winner? And thanks for mentioning me – it made me feel famous!
This is just fascinating to me, Celi, and I’m really curious to see what diatomaceous earth may do for other summer garden pests. I don’t have the little guys you are fighting, but a fair share of others. It’s worth a try! And the peach liqueur is really enticing. 🙂
Those bugs must be maddening, but good that you have a solution. I’m wondering if the d-earth is a bit like our Derris Dust? The peaches look so abundant, even if they are small.
your peaches, although tiny look fabulous! I bet they pack a punch in flavour
I have seen the suggestion where you soak liquor in something flavourful, then pour it onto a second batch of the flavour, etc until your alcohol has the strength you like. Having many baby peaches, perhaps that would work for you this year. It might result in many peach deserts as well as peach vodka. That has to be a win win!
Win Win Indeed.. c
Oh I also have a love affair both with dill pickles and zucchini so understand your frustration only too well! Had never heard of the BB but my zucchini plants have looked similar. Don’t know about DE but I think you said you used it in the barn also to keep unwanted pests at bay? Guess they too like the atmosphere of the farmy 😉 ! Wonder whether they would have a happy death in said vodka [as snails/slugs do in beer here 🙂 !] but ”tis would be kind of expensive ‘solution’. Love MD’s links . . .
last time i had bumper crop of little peaches
i took out pits, did not peel
heated with little water till soft
ran thru food mill,to get rid of peel
made peachsause
added drop or 2 almond extract to up the peachyness
similar to applesause
i froze some, made peach jelly with rest