Squash Bugs and Good Eats

While talking to Jennie on the phone a couple of nights ago, I decided to check out the garden because we have so many tomatoes getting ripe.  To my surprise the squash and zucchini plants had quickly turned brownish yellow and the veggies were dying.  Without much inspection at all, my eyes caught the movement of hundreds, dare I say thousands, of bugs!

As I'm inspecting them I'm giving Jennie the complete rundown....

        Me, "They look tick-like....what the heck? It just pooped!  Gross. Gross. Gross."
        Her response, "Did it squirt out like gel?"
        Me, "YES!"  
        Her, "Well, that's how stink bugs poop."
        Me, "Holy crap, they DO look like baby stink bugs!!"

You can imagine the next 15 minutes of me freaking out about these nasty critters (known as Squash Bugs) that are killing my squash.  After consulting numerous websites to figure out what they were and what the heck to do about them, Rich and I went on an all out killing rampage armed with dish soap (Palmolive) and water mixed in a water bottle.  We pulled up all of the squash and zucchini plants along with hundreds of bugs and eggs and tied them up in garbage bags.  The rest were doused with the spray and died within minutes.  Over the last two days we've checked the rest of the plants and iced any stray bastards that we could find.

The eggs!

The babies

Hailey was the official spotter while we sprayed

Look at those suckers making a run for it. 

On a positive note, we've picked dozens of tomatoes so I've been enjoying my favorite summertime food, fresh tomato sandwiches.  We also made something similar to Mimi's famous macaroni and tomatoes by combining whole wheat egg noodles, a little trivia, salt, and boiled fresh tomatoes.

Can you believe that we grew all of those!?

Noodles and tomatoes

And, today we checked the red potatoes and harvested each of the plants.  We sliced some of them, drizzled them with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, and baked them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  They were delicious!

Straight from the garden!

Straight into my belly.