Pests & diseases › Cucumber Beetles
Cucumber Beetles
Striped or spotted yellow-and-black beetles. Eat cucurbit leaves AND transmit bacterial wilt (the real killer).
Symptoms
- Yellow beetles with black stripes or spots on cucurbit leaves
- Holes chewed in leaves and flowers
- Sudden wilting (caused by bacterial wilt transmission, not the chewing itself)
- Scarred fruit
Lifecycle
Adults overwinter in debris, emerge as cucurbits planted out.
What to do
- Hand pick early morning when sluggish
- Yellow sticky traps
- Kaolin clay spray (Surround) — physical barrier
- Spinosad
If it's bad
- Pyrethrin (apply at dusk to avoid bee kill)
Stop it coming back
- Floating row cover until flowering (must remove for pollination)
- Trap crops: Blue Hubbard squash planted around main cucurbit patch
- Delay planting until early summer — main flight is over
- Resistant varieties (limited): Saladin cucumber
Crops it goes for
Acorn Squash (Pumpkin)
Butternut Squash (Pumpkin)
Cantaloupe
Cucumber
Giant Pumpkin (Squash)
Hubbard Squash (Pumpkin)
Jack-O'-Lantern Pumpkin (Squash)
Ornamental Pumpkin (Squash)
Pie Pumpkin (Squash)
Summer Squash (Pumpkin)
Watermelon
Zucchini (Courgette)
Plan the plot, track every sowing, cook the harvest
Sowing reminders and harvest forecasts for your own frost dates, the Seed Tin, Scan Centre for any label or packet, and the Potty Mouth Garden Club. Free to start.