It’s prime harvest season and the bugs are hungry too! Growing organically requires that we catch a problem before it gets out of hand. Healthy plants tend to be more pest resistant. Also, if you can remove a leaf covered with eggs or pull 1 diseased plant, it can save you lots of headaches in the future. Yellow sticky traps will catch those 1st cucumber beetles and if you see ants, you’ll probably see aphids. Safer’s soap works well on aphids. Cucumber beetles are harder to control. Neem or spinosaid (concern is a brand name) give some control.
If tomato leaves are disappearing at an alarming rate, it’s probably a tomato horn worm. If you are lucky, parasitic wasps will take care of the problem. It reminds me of the movie “Alien”, but it’s effective. If you see a horn worm with these white tubes, leave it. You’ll be producing your own beneficial insects. Otherwise Dipel is a good choice.
Squash bugs carry disease and they eat the leaves as well. If you see a leaf covered with these. Fold it up and squash (ha ha) them. You definitely have to catch
them small, before they form their hard shell, for most pesticides to work. Spinosaid is your best bet. Neem will work if they are very small.
If all else fails, 1st frost isn’t that far away…