Pests

This years garden has turned out to be the least productive since we began the garden. We have had a rash of pests that have turned the usual green garden into a mostly dead mass of formally green plants. 

The main pest is these squash bugs, the grey ones are the adolescents. They swarm the plants and kill them off and cause the vegetables to rot on the vine. These attacked the squash and melons first but have now moved on to the cucumbers and almost everything but the tomatoes.

They attack the plant is such a way that they are very hard to remove, the recommendation is to smash them and physically remove them from the plant. We have them is such numbers that this was not an option. There are chemical options but I am trying to avoid the use of chemicals to keep what comes out of my garden as healthy as possible. I would prefer no vegetables to pesticides. 

Here is another view of the garden from two weeks ago, it has gotten worse since.

Another issue is the aphids, they are attacking like crazy.

Our pumpkins were looking good but due to the pests they almost all rotted on the vines. All that the garden is producing at this point is the tomatoes, the corn isnt looking good either. When dropping our veggies off at the fair this week we were told that it was a bad year for gardens across the valley and the number of submissions was way down.

Another factor that is negatively affecting the gardens is the weather. Our valley should normally have about 14 inches of rain in a year, so far we are at 2. Also the weather has been really unusual, we have periods of unusually hot followed by unusually cool temperatures. This cut most growing season short and may also have helped the pest problem along.