Whatever bug/caterpillar or whatever is damaging your squash and cucumbers, this guy has nothing to do with it. It is not any of the common pests for those crops but is a member of the caddisfly family and is just passing through. His larvae are aquatic and so is his diet.

So you need to explore the plants more to find out what is doing the damage. If all else fails post a photo of the damage being done.

You can Google "common squash (cucumber) pests" for pics of all the bad guys.

Dave

These are the caterpillars themselves. They create a web and fold the leaf over and burrow into the cuccoon like leaf. They are green and lately I have been picking them off by hand but I heard a molasses mixture may work? If there's any way to get rid of them please let me know! I appreciate your help!

Also...this Is the underside of a relief that they laid their eggs on

Safer Caterpillar Killer concentrate. Mix with water and spray on the plants. They have a version for organic gardening.

BT - otherwise called Thuricide

You have a major aphid infestation on the underside of the foliage. There are living aphids, aphid mummies that have been parasitized, and the cast off skins of aphids. I see no caterpillar eggs. I also believe that the larva in the first image is that of a syrphid fly....a beneficial predator. Certainly doesn't look like a caterpillar.

Yes, the 'caterpillar' is quite posssibly eating the aphids. This kind of thing is why it's so important to id a pest before deciding whether or not to destroy it, and if so how.

Whatever it is, it's doing some major damage to the leaves of my plants which can't be beneficial...you guys think the caterpillars are helping me to get rid of the "aphid"?

I looked up a picture of an aphid and I have never seen this bug before anywhere on my plants....

How should I fix the problem, reguardless of what it is? It's very stressful! This is my first year gardening and it is so upsetting that this is happening :(

Well I'm not sure about the "caterpillar", which does look more like a maggot than a caterpillar, but the specks on the underside of your leaves are definitely aphids (there are many, many different kinds).

"How should I fix the problem, reguardless of what it is?"

A strong blast of water to the underside of the leaves will help get rid most of the aphids. Repeat as necessary. If the green larva is indeed a beneficial predator then you won't want to use anything more than water or else you risk killing the larvae. Killing them will only increase your aphid problems.

Rodney

It is stressful to you because you are new to gardening. But the important thing to remember is that it isn't stressful to the plant much at all. Even a bunch of fold in half leaves don't hurt the plant. Nothing in any of your photos shows any plant damage much less any major damage.

The aphids, now that you know what they look like, can be easily controlled. The fly nymph is no problem.

Use this as a learning experience about gardening and the various insects and which ones are beneficials - good guys - and which are not. Not only are the fly larvae helping by eating the aphids but the parent flies contribute to pollination.

Ultimately, we can all tell you it is no problem but you have to convince yourself to believe it. Or you can just douse the plant with pesticides. The choice is yours.

Dave

'I looked up a picture of an aphid and I have never seen this bug before anywhere on my plants....'

We can see scores of aphids right there in your pictures. Maybe you are not quite appreciating the scale of an aphid from looking at pictures online. Every pale green oval in your photo you thought were eggs is an aphid. Every dark coloured one is a dead or dying aphid. Every papery white thing is a sloughed aphid skin. All these are very small but they are clearly visible there.

Digdirt is right - plants can cope with a lot of nuisance bugs. It won't kill them.

Courtney, consider yourself successful if you have good luck with 50% of what you plant. Like Dave said, this is how we learn.

I remember planting lettuce and chard my first year, and aphids got it so bad, I won't plant it anymore. I got the heebie jeebies and couldn't wash the leaves enough to be sure I wasn't eating the bugs. I think we all start out planting what we like to eat. With experience, we learn to plant a combination of things we like to eat, and things we can grow without too much trouble or too much chemical warfare.

Every year, my pole beans get attacked by cucumber beetles, but they've never killed the whole plant. Worse they do is chew holes in the leaves and put some pin holes in some of my beans. I've decided I will share as long as they don't get too greedy. I also get aphids on my zucchini, but I can hose those off the plants well enough, at least until the end of the summer when I'm tired of zucchini and want to pull the plants.

Every year, something dies of a bug or fungus or just not enough attention, and often it's the thing that grew just fine the year before. That's just the way it is. Allow me to echo the others and advise you not to expect a bug-free garden. You will do more harm than good trying to throw chemicals at everything you see. Let the wise folks here help you identify what you're dealing with, then wait for the proper advice. Between them and your own experiences, your results will improve from year to year, I'm sure.

That long cool spell last spring caused an aphid explosion, especially on my tomatoes. I fretted but just blasted them with water. It was so cool that the aphid predators were late coming out, so the aphids population was really high. I noticed our rose of sharon in front was *covered* in them. All over the branch tips. I couldn't blast them all off with water since it's a good sized tree. At that point I was ready to get some kind of hose end pesticide spray and douse it.... and then I spotted a lady bug larva on it. Then another. And some adult ladybugs. And then several aphid lions. I didn't buy the pesticide. I went on vacation for a week and came back and there wasn't a single aphid left on that rose of sharon. The predators were emerging and had been feasting while I was gone.

Thank you everyone for all of your help and wise advice. I'm sure you understand my frustration, with it being my first year of gardening and seeing my poor plants that I've worked so hard on getting eaten! However, you have all taught me that it's not due to my failure as a gardener but just nature that takes its toll!!!

I think I have decided to just let everything ride its course. I will no longer try and pick off the caterpillars as they may be beneficial predators! However, should I pull/cut off the leaves with aphid infestations? Or should I try and spray them hard with water??

There is damage to the leaves, but it couldn't really be seen very well in the pictures. The picture I have attached shows the damage to some of the leaves.

Like everyone has mentioned, I need to take the good with the bad....my pole bean plants seem to really be prospering!

Yes we do understand as w have all been there at one point or another. One of the first things we each learned as a new gardener is that there is no such thing as a perfect plant. All plant leaves get holes and it doesn't even faze the plants.

Your cucumber plant in the photo is very hale and hearty and as good if not better looking than most I see daily. But yes you do need to hose the aphids off the leaves. No need to remove the leaves themselves.

If you want to get a real sense of revenge, of overcoming nature, put gloves on and just rub them off with your fingers. **evil grin**

And keep in mind for future reference that aphids are attracted to excess levels of nitrogen in plants so go easy on the fertilizers.

Dave

My first year gardening in this house, I joked that the only pest I hadn't seen was a swarm of locusts. Then I knocked on wood.

Over time, and with the great help on this forum, you will learn what pests you can ignore and which ones need to be dealt with. You may also play with planting at different times of year. For instance, I do spring broccoli. I don't do fall broccoli because the aphids are out then where I don't have to deal with them in the spring. Same for bok choi and a few other things. It's really about experimenting, and accepting that some things are going to be a fail.

I think gardening is more of a journey than it is an event. As long as you enjoy the process and appreciate the stuff you DO end up with, you will find it's worth it! Gets me off the couch, anyways, heh.

I agree with all the advice you've been given.

But let me add a couple things.

First off, it ISN'T a caterpillar. Learn to recognize caterpillars, because with them, you DO want to remove them and discard.

Aphids -- strong jet sprays on the undersides of the leaves usually does the trick. I use a spray nozzle with the water turned on just a tad. The trick is to be diligent -- every 3 days or so for a good couple weeks at dusk. If that doesn't do the trick, then you would want to use the least toxic and target specific pesticide for that particular pest, ALWAYS. -- so I.D. is terribly important. For aphids, that would be either neem oil or insecticidal soap.

Another idea is to, as you said, is to not "let nature take it's TOLL." , but to let nature take it's COURSE. In other words, research Integrated Pest Management. Planting certain plants that attract the GOOD bugs to control the BAD ones.

Good luck and btw, great looking cuke plants(except the aphids)!

Kevin

Thank you to all for the help and support! You guys are the best!!!