Striped Cucumber Beetle

My time spent working at the 1812 Garden this summer has gone by with surprisingly, and satisfyingly, few speed bumps. Unlike last summer, when a week spent on vacation at the beginning of the summer meant that the entire garden would be infested with velvet leaf, the weeds never got too out of hand. And the weather, while surely frustrating for vacationers all over the Northeast, was splendid for the garden, with the copious amounts of rain insuring that all the crops received their necessary sustenance.

The biggest blip that I came across this summer was the 1 or 2 week period at the end of June when the striped cucumber beetles descended on Clinton, NY, and laid siege on the leaves of the many different plants that were grown. These little buggers are small, bothersome, and efficient at what they do. At first I didn’t really notice anything, and then one day I came to the garden only to find that the leaves on one of the squash plants looked like it may have just gone through an incinerator.

The striped cucumber beetles, which thankfully left town after a week or two, took mostly just to the squash plants. But they left such an indelible mark that one of our squashes was so completely eaten through that the entire plant was killed.

These beetles, about 1/5 of an inch long, usually only munch on the roots of plants. But when there is a high density of plant life, the beetles will branch out and feed off of the stems and leaves of said plants, as well, which is exactly what happened in our case. The only preventive measure that can be taken is to spray your pants with a solvent derived from a soap product, which repels the beetles. We received this advice too late to save one of our squash plants, but we probably saved some of our other crops by applying this solvent to our plants.

After they left, there was little else to worry about except for the thought of impending doom at the hands of the blight fungus, which thankfully has not materialized. But the striped cucumber beetles certainly left their mark. I’m reminded of it every day I walk  past the slowly decomposing dead leaves left behind by those tiny, hungry beetles.