Today I found a handful of brown marmorated stink bugs in my garden (first instar nymphs), which is a sign that the stink bug onslaught is upon us.

Last week I found a spray bottle of water with a squirt of hand dish soap (ie: Dawn) in it was highly effective at killing boxelder bugs, with faster and better effect than most insecticides (ie: Sevin, lambda-cyhalothrin) which seem to be slow to affect them.

Today I found stink bug nymphs are just as susceptible to soap water. I’ve got no hesitations about a bit of soap in on my vegetables, so I think this is going to be the first-line weapon of choice in the garden this year.

Admittedly the soap has no residual effect (only kills what it hits) but these stink bugs seem largely immune to residuals anyway (except perhaps for piles of dust insecticides in cracks). Since I’m not going to get any useful residual effect from a spray, I may as well use cheap, safe soap to kill my stink bugs…

I also found a few striped cucumber beetles out there too, but they don’t worry me that much (yet).

My Better Boy tomato continues to try to become the size of an oak tree, so I spent a bit of time adjusting its cage to contain it in a more upright growth.. We’ll see how long I can keep on top of it.

The squashes are also doing well, and I’ve spotted my first female blooms on the Balmoral and Tataume squashes..

Here’s hoping we have some good eats soon :)