As the growing season progresses, so does the number of pests you might be dealing with. Here are five that might be a particular concern in August.
Squash bugs
If your squash, pumpkins, melons or gourds are crawling with little light-colored insects, you’ve found young squash bugs, which are emerging from the nymph stage right now. As they grow, they’ll become brown and about half an inch in length. The bugs feed on the juice inside plant vines and release toxins into them, often causing wilting, and may later eat fruit.
At this point in the season, there’s not a lot you can do beyond picking them off your plants. You can place a board along your plants, where the bugs will gather and can be easily collected early in the morning.
Older plants perhaps can withstand the bugs, but anything recently planted needs more attention. Trellising them if you can, instead of letting them grow along the ground, provides less habitat for the bugs.
When the season ends, removing plant debris from the field can help reduce their population next year. If you used landscape fabric around plants that now have a squash bug problem, use it on a different crop next season or take it out of rotation for the year. And look for the coppery eggs squash bugs lay on the undersides of leaves, which can be easily crushed.
Hornworms
Both tomato and tobacco hornworms, big green caterpillars with white markings on their sides and a horn-shaped end, will chew through your tomato plants and even the fruit itself. They can leave scarring on the fruit even if the plants survive.You might find them on other plants in the nightshade family too, like peppers or eggplants.
Even if you don’t see the hornworms themselves, keep an eye out for their square-shaped dark droppings. They often feed in the evening and blend in with leaves, so you might miss them until it’s too late. Going into the garden with a black light at night will make them easy to spot.
When you see them, pick them off the plants by hand. You can drown them in a bucket of soapy water, feed them to your chickens or, if you feel adventurous, freeze them, boil them and eat them.
Some gardeners prefer to move them away from the tomatoes but let them live. They’ll turn into sphinx moths, which help pollinate the garden.
If you see the caterpillars with a mass of white eggs on their back, leave them. Those will become the larvae of parasitic wasps that feed on the inside of the caterpillar and kill it.
Skunks
Young skunks are now old enough to be out foraging with their mothers. They might burrow in your ground, disturb your bees or snack on your chicken eggs. They can also help you by eating insects and small rodents that might cause you problems.
To make your property less appealing to them, make sure you’re securely storing any animal feed, garbage and compost. Filling in holes in the ground they could use as burrows is another deterrent, as well as closing off access with deep-set wire mesh to any areas under buildings or porches that they could choose for dens.
An electric fence or motion-activated light could get them moving, too.
If you’re still having trouble with skunks or other wildlife, you can find an Animal Damage Control Operator licensed through the state.
Birds
If you’re growing berries, birds could be plaguing your garden right now.
One popular choice is hanging shiny, reflective materials over the plants. Strips of holographic plastic, reflective tape, pie pans, small mirrors or old CDs hung from posts discourage birds, but some will figure it out quickly. Adding a noise, and changing up what you use, can keep the birds scared.
The most effective option is covering the plants with fine-grid bird netting supported by posts or a frame. Don’t put it directly on the plants. You can also use netting to cover lettuce or other vegetable crops by clipping it over hoops or to posts down the length of the bed.
Cabbage worms
Your kale, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts could be in danger from cabbage worms, which can kill these plants as they eat through them. The caterpillars, which will soon become moths, are thin, green and about an inch and a half long with a yellowish stripe down their back.
They can be found on other plants that belong to the brassica vegetable family, which also includes turnips, mustard greens, rutabaga and bok choy.
In addition to picking the worms off by hand, if you don’t want to use insecticide you can make sure to pull neighboring weeds in the same plant family, and make sure to clear out all the plant debris from the field after harvest.
Next year, row cover over your young plants can prevent the adult moths from laying their eggs there.
