How to Get Rid of Cucumber Beetles in the Garden
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How to Identify Cucumber Beetles
Adult striped cucumber beetles are about ¼ inch long and have a yellow-and-black–striped abdomen and a dark-colored head and antennae. Spotted cucumber beetles are the same length but have 12 black spots on a yellow abdomen. The larvae are worm-like, white, dark-headed, and have three pairs of legs on the thorax.
Identifying Cucumber Beetle Damage
While cucumber beetle larvae feed on cucurbit roots, adult feeding is more damaging to the crop. Adults feed on leaves and can stunt plant growth. Look for holes and yellowing and wilting leaves.
Feeding on flowers can reduce fruit production, and direct feeding on fruits causes unattractive scars and pock marks on the fruit, too.
Often, the cucumber beetles alone will not kill the plants or cause major damage, but the spread of disease will. Feeding by adult cucumber beetles can spread bacterial wilt disease among cucurbit plants, even when the population density of the insect is low.
Adult cucumber beetles overwinter in weeds, garden debris, and woody areas. The diseases they carry can also overwinter internally, and can be passed onto plants the next spring through fecal matter.
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How to Get Rid of Cucumber Beetles
- Inspect newly planted cucurbit plants for the presence of this beetle; be watchful when plants are seedlings.
- Use yellow sticky traps to catch cucumber beetles and other pests.
- Knock beetles to the ground and catch them with a piece of cardboard placed under the plant. Or, use a handheld vacuum to suck up the beetles. They are very hard to hand-pick, but it is easier to hand-pick them with yellow gloves coated in petroleum jelly.
- Cover seedlings with row covers, though you must remove them during blossoming time several hours each day to allow for pollination.
- Few insecticides can be used on cucurbit plants because they are very sensitive. They would need to be used when plants are just beginning to emerge through the soil. Please contact your local cooperative extension for a list of approved insecticides for your area.
- Folk advice from The 1963 Old Farmer’s Almanac states that nasturtiums and wood ashes are effective against cucumber beetles.
How to Prevent Cucumber Beetles
- If you till your garden in the late fall, you will expose cucumber beetles hiding there to harsh winter conditions and reduce their populations next year. Remove all debris after fall harvest to reduce overwintering habitat.
- Rotate crops so cucurbit crops are not planted directly into soils containing overwintering populations.
- Transplanting young plants rather than direct seeding can protect vulnerable seedlings from damage.
- Planting trap crops (cucurbit varieties highly attractive to cucumber beetles) at the perimeter of the harvested crop can keep cucumber beetles from migrating into the harvested crop.
- Where cucumber beetles are a problem, let the beetles come out of hiding and plant late. They have a knack for finding vulnerable seedlings. When yours are up and growing, the cucumber beetles will be gone, fooled into thinking you don’t have any cucumbers in your garden.
- Natural predators include beneficial insects like braconid wasps, some nematodes, and soldier beetles.
- Companion planting your vegetables with flowers can help to keep pests away from the plants you don’t want the beetles to attack.
- Once the bacterial disease has entered the plant, there’s very little that you can do. If it’s bacterial wilt, you’ll see the leaves dry up, and the plant will quickly wilt and die. Take prevention for next year, as described above.
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I have some spotted cucumber beetles and some squash bugs. Lately, I have noticed eggs on my cucumbers that a small bright red and grainy. Are these due to the beetles, or something else.
Those sounds like squash beetle eggs!
I don't think they are squash bug eggs, because those are tan colored. But I also have some kind of gray long and skinny bugs and grasshoppers.
Are the spotted ones sort of fuzzy too? I just found one crawling across the kitchen glass door and immediately trapped it under transparent tape so that I could take a closer look at what it was and whether or not it might be a harmful bug to my pug.
Oops nvm i was just looking at it too hard hehe thought i saw fuzz lol
Cucumber beetles have been destroying our Chinese lanterns. After using both diatomaceous earth and spraying with Raid Mosquito and Fly spray, they have disappeared. Wouldn't use it on vegetable plants, though.
I seem to have these on my flowers, cosmos & zinnias. Is this possible? I do not have a vegetable garden. They are eating blooms & leaves.
Rebecca I have a ton of them all over my mexican sunflowers. They have eaten tiny holes in the petals and also the petals of my cosmos.
Striped cucumber beetles typically stick only to cucumbers, squash, and related vegetables, but spotted cucumber beetles are known to be much less picky. It could certainly be these beetles that you’re seeing on your flowers.
I have found that killing the beetles by hand at night works. I have sprayed them with water to prevent them from flying. Then kill them by hand. Also neem oil seems to help. My latest discover is to use a bright flashlight at night, usually around 10:30, against my garden box wall... don't spray with water because you want them to fly. The beetles flock to it like moths and are easy to squash by hand or spray with neem oil. I think I might try the alcohol spray on them against the box since I wouldn't be spraying the plants. An added note of interest.... one night a rattlesnake slithered three inches past my foot!! Yes!! They really are out at night!!!
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