At least 8 m²86 ft². If your bed is smaller, the planner grays this plant team out, says why, and offers the nearest adaptation that fits. It never swaps in something else without telling you.
What it looks like planted
3 × Winter squash
51 × Cucumber
The real placement on an example 10 ft bed, the same layout the planner draws.
Between seasons
Nothing is left living in the bed over winter; the whole planting is re-established.
What it claims
A ring of the cucurbit the beetles prefer draws them to the edge, where they are dealt with, and keeps most of them and the wilt they carry off the crop
How it works: Striped cucumber beetles prefer Cucurbita maxima to C. pepo and C. moschata, and they arrive in one early flush from whatever direction they overwintered. A perimeter of the preferred host intercepts that flush on every side and concentrates the beetles on plants the gardener can treat or strip, so the unsprayed center sees far fewer beetles and far less of the wilt bacterium they transmit. The trap concentrates the beetles and does not kill them. The beetles in the border must be removed, or the ring feeds the crop instead of protecting it.
Evidence: checked against 3 sources in the research-based literature.
Trap cropping exploits the fact that SCB are more attracted to Cucurbita maxima crops (e.g. buttercup and hubbard squashes and giant pumpkins) than C. pepo or C. moschata crops
Melons and cucumbers are susceptible to bacterial wilt, which makes them very vulnerable to cucumber beetle feeding all season long
What to keep in mind
The border does the catching; you do the rest. Beetles gathered on the hubbard have to be removed, by hand, under a cover, or with whatever control you choose. Otherwise the ring becomes a nursery that sends more beetles onto the crop. Plant the hubbard a week or two before the cucumbers so it is up when the first beetles arrive, and keep it unbroken around the crop. The trials behind this were field-scale; a garden ring is the same idea at a size the researchers only say may work.
Who does what, and the swaps
Each job in this planting can be done by more than one plant. The usual choice comes first, and each swap says what it costs.
Perimeter trap cropping as developed and trialed by UConn Cooperative Extension (Boucher and Durgy, 2003) and recommended by UMass Extension and Univ. of Minnesota Extension for cucumber beetles.
