True bugs. Forewings cover half of the abdomen (aka backs) of true bugs. They are in the order Hemiptera, which means half wing. Many other insects are often called bugs, the lady bug for example, which is actually a beetle (a lady beetle). But the only actual bugs are insects in the order Hemiptera.

 All of the true bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts like hypodermic needles. The bugs that damage our vegetable gardens are ones like stink bugs, squash bugs, harlequin bugs, and tarnished plant bugs. But there are also good bugs, beneficial predators, like minute pirate bugs, that use their needle-like mouth to stab other insects and suck the life out of them. Aside from the bugs you find in your garden there are also bugs like bed bugs and kissing bugs, ones that feed on us humans by sucking our blood.

This green stink bug has its needle-like mouth parts inserted into a flower bud and is busy sucking nutrients out of the plant. You can clearly see that the hard forewings (green with yellow dots) only cover half the bug’s back. The membranous hindwings stick out from underneath the forewings and are easily visible to the naked eye. Stink bug feeding leaves Yellow spots of damaged tissue on developing fruits are the tell-tale clue that stink bugs leave behind.

This insect is a spotted asparagus beetle, not a bug and not a lady beetle. Like all beetles, the hard, colorful forewings (red with black spots in this example) completely cover the abdomen and the membranous hindwings are not visible. Beetles have chewing mouthparts, unlike bugs. This pest lays eggs on asparagus plants, and its larvae eats the asparagus berries.

All of the true bugs have incomplete metamorphosis where their babies (nymphs) look like the adults but without wings. The bug nymph shown here on an asparagus plant has very rudimentary wings and strongly resembles the adult bug. When it reaches maturity it will have well developed wings like the green stink bug in the first photo shown above.

The squash bug feeds on squash plants and their relatives. It, like the stink bug, is a true bug. The adults and the babies (nymphs) stick their sharp little beaks into the leaves and suck out the nutritious sap. They can seriously damage your summer and winter squash, and pumpkins, but they will also feed to a lesser extent on any other member of the cucurbit family. The nymphs look a bit like gigantic gray aphids clustered on the undersides of the leaves. When they reach adulthood they have well developed wings and are swift flyers.

In contrast to insects that have incomplete metamorphosis, those that have complete metamorphosis, like butterflies, have babies (larvae) which do not look anything like the adult. The butterfly larva is a caterpillar, a very different creature from the adult. The fly larva is a maggot, also very different from the adult.

 Effective organic controls for pesky true bugs in the vegetable garden include hand-picking where you grab them and dump them into a jar of soapy water. Insecticidal soap is also safe and easy to use. Just be sure that the bug you spray is actually a pest and not a beneficial insect because the soap will kill pests and beneficials alike. If you are plagued by bugs in your vegetable garden this year, think about putting up some row covers next year to exclude the bugs completely.

 Be careful and think twice before using any chemicals to control insects in your vegetable garden. Remember, you’re growing food that you intend to eat. Never spray your food with poison. 

Today we pay tribute to David’s father, Lawrence Edwin Deardorff, who passed away on May 11 at the age of 97. Larry first took David into the garden when he was 6 years old, and he learned about the world of plants at his father’s side. Larry was an avid gardener his entire life, and became our partner when David and I owned Island Biotropix, an orchid nursery and tissue culture lab in Hawaii. Thank you, Dad. We will miss you terribly.

David wrote this memory of his Dad last year and we’d like to share it with you today:

 My father’s huge hands scooped a small hole in the rich garden soil and placed a tomato seedling in it. He mopped his brow, sweating in the humid afternoon of an Ohio spring. As instructed, I knelt beside him, scraped soil around the root ball with my small eight year old hands, and pressed it down. My first lesson in how to be a good provider. A man’s job.  Our backyard vegetable garden became an important source of food for a big family with a meager income.

 Dad hammered a wooden stake into the ground beside the plant, showing me how to place the stake to avoid damaging the roots. More interested in completing my bug collection than in embracing the moment, my mind wandered and precious moments with my father melted away like winter snow.

 I loosely tied three or four strips of an old sheet to each stake, optimistically anticipating the eventual height of the tomato plants. As spring passed into summer the tomato patch became a jungle and helping Dad tie each plant to its stake as the plant grew taller was my responsibility.

 On a hot summer afternoon when Dad was at work, I walked into the garden alone. “Keep Out” he had decreed. Ah, but he was not home and I was a bad boy.

 The evocative aroma of the tomato plants enveloped me as I brushed past their leaves. Taller than me, the exuberant vines hid me as I hunted for bugs. Large green fruit hung down in clusters on all sides. A solitary fire-engine red tomato, like a buoy in that sea of green, called out to me. Furtively, I snatched it from the vine.

The fruit radiated heat from the sun into my hands.  I took a bite. The flavor exploded in my mouth. Incredibly complex acidity, sweetness, and aroma. It was magnificent, and so vivid it is burned into my memory banks. I have never forgotten the taste of that forbidden fruit.

 When Dad came home he went directly to the garden. I’m sure he’d been dreaming about that ripe tomato, the first of the season, all day long. He must have stared in disbelief at the empty space where it had been. I can imagine the storm clouds gathering in his face and almost hear thunderous bellowing that came after. But I wasn’t there to see. Long gone, I played at a neighbor’s house, and missed the outburst.

Later that evening, at supper, Dad brooded, certain that one of us children had stolen his tomato. His dark mood infected the house. He didn’t know which of us had done it. All of us were suspect. Safe behind Mom’s protection, all my sisters maintained their innocence. As of course, did I.

 We moved out west in 1957, where summer nights are cool and dry, and not as friendly to tomatoes. I’ve grown tomatoes in the west for more than fifty years, but I’ve never duplicated the sensational taste or size of that stolen tomato of my childhood.

 Dad planted a vegetable garden every year. He even bought the vacant lot next door and turned that into food production as well. As he aged he began to complain about the hard work. Each year he swore he would never plant a garden again and yet, by summer his garden would always be in full production. Throughout the growing season he distributed baskets of onions, squash, beans and tomatoes to all of his children.

As I matured and put down roots thousands of miles away to found my own family, my father and I remained close. We conversed for hours about orchids, birch trees, and tomatoes. We debated the merits of fertilizers, hand tools, and special cultivars. I convinced him to try native wildflowers in the flower beds, he convinced me to grow his favorite open-pollinated pimiento. The garden has been a conduit for our love for almost sixty years. 

 Over all that time I never told Dad that I was the one who ate that tomato. He would laugh about it now, if it were possible for him to understand me. But it’s too late.

After ninety six years he’s gone away, leaving his body behind. The doctors call it senile dementia, not Alzheimer’s, but the result is the same. He has no memory of any of his children, of his wife of seventy-one years, or of anything to do with gardening. I am a stranger to him now. Just a nice guy who brought him the last ripe tomato of the season.

Every spring I’m frequently asked two questions by gardeners in northern states. The first is, “Why doesn’t my zucchini grow? It just sits there. What’s wrong with it?”  The second common question I get is, “What’s wrong with my zucchini (or cucumber, or melon)? It has lots and lots of flowers but no fruit. What’s up with that?”

Home gardeners love to grow members of the squash family, the Cucurbitaceae, called cucurbits for short. This big, important family includes all types of squash: winter (like acorn and butternut), and summer (like zucchini). It also includes cucumbers, pumpkins, melons in the genus Cucumis (cantaloupe, Persian, honeydew, casaba) and watermelon, in the genus Citrullus.

Keep in mind one very important fact about all these delicious vegetables and fruits:  they are all warm season crops. This means that they are sensitive to cold temperatures. And this sensitivity can cause stunting and lack of fruit.

Vegetable starts of warm season plants are readily available in nurseries and garden centers early in the season, when temperatures are really still too cold for them to thrive. As a result, when gardeners plant them too early, the plants simply sit, growing slowly or not at all, and become stunted. They usually begin to grow well when the weather warms up. So the answer to the first question is the squash doesn’t grow because it is still a bit too cold for it.

These two summer squash, each about 3 inches tall, wait for warmth. They’ve not grown significantly in the two months since they were planted. The photo also illustrates the second problem that crops up this time of year. Both plants above are flowering, but all the flowers are male. Male flowers do not make fruit. Only female flowers make fruit. All members of the squash family have female and male flowers on the same plant, but they produce only male flowers early in the season while temperatures are still cool. They start producing female flowers later in the season.

Here’s a female cucumber flower. See the spiny baby cucumber holding this flower up? That fat spiny structure below the petals (that is, closer to the plant) is the ovary of a female flower. The ovary is the thing that matures into a fruit, whether it’s an acorn squash or a zucchini. No female flowers, no fruit! And that’s the answer to the second question.

Look at the stalk holding up this male zucchini flower. It doesn’t look like a miniature zucchini at all. That’s because it isn’t. This stalk is merely a stalk. This flower does not have an ovary because it is a male flower and it will never mature into a fruit. The male flowers produce the pollen needed to fertilize the female flowers.

A female flower of a yellow summer squash clearly has a large yellow ovary underneath the flower petals. The ovary looks like a miniature squash. After the female flower gets pollinated it matures into a delicious squash.

 Next time you wonder why your cucurbit plants sit and sulk, or your zucchinis make flowers but no fruit, just be patient. Keep your vegetable starts where they are warm and have plenty of sun. Put them outside in the garden or a container when the weather warms up.