How to Prevent Cucumber Beetles from Destroying Your Gourds

Cucumber beetles are a gourd grower's No. 1 enemy. Once they start reproducing, and they will, your best hope is to keep them under control. If you have grown gourds one year already, then the first step in controlling cucumber beetles is tilling the garden. When it comes to Cucumber Beetles and gourds, cucumber beetles can destroy your vines and your crop. They multiply rapidly and by the end of one season, they can be so thick, some gourds will be devoured by them and you will see cucumber beetles crawling in and out of them like ands in an ant hill.

Cucumber beetles like the gourd leaves and vines, and when danger approaches them, they fall to the ground where they quickly try to scamper into the ground and disappear. cucumber beetles reproduce by burrowing into the ground and laying their eggs in the ground. they also winter over under the ground, and in the spring, new babies pop up in time to much all your new seedlings and will kill a crop before it can start to grow.

In order to get a good start on a new season, you should use a tiller or cultivator to till the garden, every where the gourd vines covered. This will stir up the eggs and being lighter than the dirt, will leave them on the surface where they will die of exposure. If you can till in the fall before winter sets in, and then again in the early spring while it is still cold, this will work even better and you will get a clean start to the season. you will still get cucumber beetles, but not as bad and at least you can get your plants started.