Stink bugs in the home garden

Encyclopedia Botanica Podcast, Ep. 124: Stink bugs in the home garden

Episode 124 of the Encyclopedia Botanica podcast features a conversation with Professor Emeritus Michael Raupp from the University of Maryland. The discussion centers around stink bugs, identified as a major pest in gardens. Professor Raupp explains the characteristics, life cycle, and origins of stink bugs, noting their spread from Asia to most of the United States and parts of Canada. The interview also covers the damage stink bugs cause to various crops, their feeding habits, and potential control methods including trap crops, mechanical control, and organic pesticides. Raupp emphasizes the importance of understanding the pest’s life cycle for effective management and encourages fostering biodiversity in gardens to support natural predators. The episode concludes with advice on identifying stink bugs and useful resources for gardeners.

The following are a few photos from our home garden of the green stink bug and it’s damage. You’ll notice that we don’t have any photos of mature adults, and that’s because all summer we’re working hard to keep the stink bugs that plague our garden from reaching adulthood. Check out Professor Raupp’s blog, Bug of the Week, for more photos of stink bugs!

Stink bugs and damage on Red Kuri winter squash

Stink bugs hiding out on nasturtiums and calendula - these sink bugs are at their 3 or 4th “instar” stage, and not yet adults.

Stink bug damaged beans (see the really dry, empty pods?) and stink bug eggs on the back of a bean leaf.

Happy hunting!

Featured
Hilary Dahl
Hilary Dahl

Hilary Dahl is a co-owner of Seattle Urban Farm Company and host of the Encyclopedia Botanica podcast. Since 2010 Hilary Dahl has been helping beginning and experienced growers create beautiful and productive gardens. She has the unique experience of working in on a wide range of projects, from small backyard garden plots to multi-acre vegetable farms. She also works in her own garden every day after work. Hilary is also the creator of our podcast, the Encyclopedia Botanica, which she started as a way to share effective and efficient garden management techniques, and as a way to spread her love of growing food and flowers!

Colin McCrate
Colin McCrate

Colin McCrate has been growing food organically for over 20 years. He worked on a variety of small farms in the Midwest before moving to the west coast in 2003 to teach garden-based environmental education. He founded the Seattle Urban Farm Company in 2007 with the goal of applying years of horticultural and agricultural expertise to help aspiring growers get projects off the ground or more accurately; in the ground.

Over the past twelve years, he has helped guide hundreds of urban farmers through the design, construction and management of their own edible landscape. Colin is the author of three books; Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard (Mountaineers Books, 2012) and Grow More Food (Storey Publishing, 2022); and is a garden writer for the Seattle Times.