Greetings from the Raincatcher’s Vegetable Gardens

March 26, 2025

We are enjoying the mild weather and it appears the vegetables are too. Last year was productive both in vegetables donated and new lessons learned.  We came pretty close to doubling our yield from the previous year (from 966 to 1833). 

The tatume squash was the star producer with 727 pounds donated to North Dallas Shared Ministries.  We would have had more but the stink bugs cut the harvest short by a few weeks. 

We left a large volunteer hybrid squash in place as a trap crop for squash vine borers.  An infestation of stink bugs quickly followed the borers on this weakened plant and spread to the tatume despite our best efforts to control them. This led to the early demise of our tatume plants and many long sessions of spraying soapy water to rid the garden of stink bugs. We are grateful to the Master Gardener interns and new volunteers who kept working with us despite this challenging (and frankly, gross, infestation).

The best advice for controlling stink bugs in small gardens is to remove the eggs and nymphs as soon as they can be found.  They can be brushed off into soapy water or vacuumed.  We missed some early opportunities but ultimately were able to get it under control in time for fall vegetables. 

Image of brown marmorated stink bug eggs and nymphs from stopbmsb.org

Beverly Allen, Dallas County Master Gardener class of 2018