In addition to natural enemies, you can spray leaves with soapy water, then rinse with clear water. Spraying with insecticidal soaps, planting in aluminum foil-covered beds and filling yellow pans with water to trap the aphids are also effective control measures. Squash plants frequently are killed by this sap-feeding pest. Leaves of plants attacked by the bugs may wilt rapidly and become brittle. Winter varieties of squash, such as Hubbard and Marrows, are much more severely damaged by the squash bug than other varieties.
Control is required to protect squash in the home garden.
The adult squash bug is rather large, brownish black, and flat-backed. The young, called nymphs, are whitish to greenish gray, with black legs. They vary in size from tiny, spiderlike individuals when first hatched, to maturing nymphs, which are nearly as large as the winged adults. Squash bugs overwinter in protected places as unmated adults. They appear rather slowly in the spring.