The Hort Report: Keep using Neem Oil for squash bugs, and don’t start pruning daylillies just yet

Thanks for all your prayers during the past few days. Laura and I appreciate them.  Please keep them coming as I recover from my recent medical issues. I’m doing better and hope to return to my normal self in a few days. 

The weather has been great for this time of year for you to be doing anything you need to do for your garden, flowerbed and yard projects. 

Neem Oil was a great insecticide to use for Japanese beetles and squash bugs this year. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t use it myself. I started using the Neem Oil Spray mix daily on polebeans, squash, cucumbers and grapes once I started seeing them in the community garden and at my house. Within a few days, I could see a difference.

I’m still spraying for squash bugs because the Japanese beetles are done for this year around here. If what I have been reading about how Neem Oil kills squash bugs at all stages of its life cycle, then his should be slowing them down now and in the coming years. I keep using Neem Oil until I don’t see any squash bugs.

You also can fight Japanese beetles by treating the soil where they laid their eggs. Once the eggs hatch and turn into larva, treating the soil with an insecticide for grubs will help kill the grubs growing in the ground. This will help break the cicadas’ grub lifecycle, too. 

As you harvest vegetables from the garden, think about a fall garden. Beets, carrots, radishes, lettuce, turnips, onions, green beans, spinach, snap peas and leafy greens can be planted in the coming days.

Water anything you are planting to get them up and growing. Rain this time of year doesn’t fall like in the spring. Fall garden vegetables should last until the first killing frost. 

Someone came in the store the other day to ask about pruning daylilies after they have finished blooming for the year. I said only to pick the old flowers off them once they have dried up. At this time of year, if you prune any perennial flowering plants, they will try to grow more stems and leaves. That is OK in the spring, but once they have flowered for the last time, they need to put energy back into their roots and other places to store up to survive the winter months. 

Once we have the first killing frost, prune them back to about four or more inches above the top of the ground. I leave the pruned cutting on top of the ground as a mulch to help protect the perennials from the cold winter months. 

You don’t need to prune fruit trees or flowering shrubs now. If you do, they will try to replace what you pruned while not putting energy back into themselves to survive the winter. If you need to prune this time of year, prune only broken, diseased and damaged parts. Finish the pruning after the first killing frost. 

Cool-season grasses are starting to grow again about four to six weeks earlier than normal. As you mow your yard in the coming days, mow it high. This helps the grass to build up its root system.  

Treat broadleaf weeds now, killing them while they are growing. Remember that if you use 2-4D as a herbicide, you can’t put down new grass seed for 60 days. 

I appreciate all your questions in the past and look forward to them in the future, so please keep them coming. Call me at 573-588-2040, visit me at Shelby County Implement in Shelbina, Mo., email me at sci63468@hotmail.com, visit me on Facebook at Greenwell’s Greenhouse Group, or ask me anytime you see me.

Pat Greenwell is the owner of Shelby County Implement in Shelbina, Mo. He was a high school agriculture teacher for 11 years. He has taught adult vocational agriculture since 1987. He also is a research assistant at the Truman State University Ag Department Farm.