Diatomaceous Earth! ’round here it’s really inexpensive, about $1/lb I think. Apply it daily (use common sense, wear a mask) until those damn evil green monsters (‘mater worms) are under control. It’ll rid your problem in a fraction of the time it takes to pick and it won’t affect your harvest. Learned that from our old-timey neighbor and we’ve had excellent results. We did the same thing as others before that…pickin’ them all the time, trying to feed them to our chicken/ducks, but they rarely showed interest let alone eat ’em. Actually D’earth works really well for a lot of pests, but not those f’in squash bugs, I know that.
Any advice on non-monsanto solutions to squash bugs?
We’re “all natural” farming ourselves, in fact we make part of our living from it. I say all natural, I mean organic, but at the end of the day we’ll do what we gotta do to keep our produce healthy. I’m with #74s’ comment on that front. But so far, so good, we’ve not had to resort to any of the poisons yet….knock on wood.
Another tip if interested; We’ve had great success with the baking soda/veggie oil/dish soap mix sprayed on our ‘maters and cukes for controlling blight. Plenty of info on the web/you tube if so inclined…