EARWIGS!!!!

I am going out tonight to see if I can find what is eating my plants. I have dug around the plants with a stick looking to see if any thing is hiding in the mix. Keeping my fingers crossed

ok I spent about an hour checking all the plants and what I found was 5 earwigs (caught 4 and one got away) and one cutworm. 4 of the earwigs were on the different marigolds and one was on the onion top and the cut worm was on the sunflower. I am going to try to check everynight to see what else I can find to get a hold on this. Can just a few earwigs do that much damage or are there likely a lot more I just havent found yet?

There are probably more earwigs and/or cutworms, and more types of pests (slugs, probably) than you saw. You might try putting out a slug trap. They always say use beer, but I had out traps for ants with borax mixed with sugar water and caught plenty of slugs with it. (No idea if it did anything to the ants, though! )

Megan wrote:snip.....I had out traps for ants with borax mixed with sugar water and caught plenty of slugs with it. (No idea if it did anything to the ants, though! )

Details please!!

What do you mean by "traps"
Does the sugar water (boil first or just stir like kool-aid?) and borax make a sludge?

For earwigs, A tuna can with water and a bit of bacon grease or tuna oil floating on top will catch quite a few, but where there are quite a few there are hundreds more. Pulse it has to be changed nightly, plus (and this is REALLY gross) the dogs like to snatch them from the garden and slurp up the contents.....not so bad if you can avoid their kisses later. At least the tuna can is clean and ready for the next night (always look to the bright side of life)

Deborah…..getting ready to cut up potato eyes for St Patrick’s Day

Lavender Debs wrote:

Megan wrote:snip.....I had out traps for ants with borax mixed with sugar water and caught plenty of slugs with it. (No idea if it did anything to the ants, though! )

Details please!!

I had some old custard / creme brulee dishes, glazed ceramic, about 3" diameter and with a rim maybe 1.5-2" high. I was completely lazy and did not try to make a syrup by boiling. It was just water, sugar, and a little borax, not a sludge. Did not measure, but it sloshed around in the container like water.... maybe a teaspoon each sugar and borax to one container (just guessing there), fill with water then swirl it up to mix. I didn't bother burying the dishes, either, since I was trying for ants. I just set the dishes on top of the landscaping timbers...and was completely grossed out by all the slugs I caught. They drowned, just as in a beer trap. The slugs around here are fairly small; for the monster ones in Washington you might want to use a bigger dish or a disposable tin pie pan (though I'm not sure, maybe the aluminum would put them off... maybe a terra cotta pot saucer would be better?)

Thanks Megan.

The normal size slugs (the size of dog poop and just as enduring) are not a real problem until the basil sprouts. It is the little gray slugs, the kind I refer to as "plant-lice" that do all the damage.

Thanks!

Lavender Debs wrote:Thanks Megan.

The normal size slugs (the size of dog poop and just as enduring) are not a real problem until the basil sprouts. It is the little gray slugs, the kind I refer to as "plant-lice" that do all the damage.

Thanks!

Hope it helps!

It looks like several different things to me also. Some of yours looks like slug damage. The kind I have are very tiny at first and almost impossible to see. In the spring they are about the size of a pin head but grow over the summer to about an inch long. I use almost every natural method of slug control I have read about..... crushed eggshells, diatomaceous earth, coffee grounds, spray with coffee and soap suds, copper wire, hand picking. This summer I will add the beer/molasses in tuna cans to the list. It seemed when I only used one method, I couldn't keep ahead of the slimy things but using a combination of them worked better.

Sometimes my onions looked like yours. I saw some crows pecking at them one day and think that is what get mine. They pulled some right out of the ground. It's seems weird but I have found lots of slugs in the onions as well. I thought that most things didn't like onions. My slugs don't seem to discriminate.

Grasshopper chewings look kind of like what you have on the sunflower. I have small brownish grey ones here.....but they have done a real number on some of my flowers. They are very hard to see and I have no idea what to use on them.

Best of luck. It is so frustrating to spend all the time tending your precious plants
and something else steals them before you get a chance to enjoy them.

Gwynn

For slugs: Put out a beer trap. Bury a container in the soil. The top should be about even with the top of the soil. Fill the container with beer with a little flour mixed in. Repeat until you stop catching slugs.

For cutworms: Use BT (BACILLUS THURINGIENSIS) or dipel dust if you can't find BT. Make sure to coat your target areas. The cut worms have to ingest the BT in order for it to work. BT degrades in sunlight and can be washed away, so you will need to reapply. Don't water for two days after using BT.

For earwigs: There is an interesting trap recipe here: http://www.ghorganics.com/page9.html#Earwigs: "1 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 tbsp molasses, 1
tbsp dry yeast, 8 ozs water. Mix all the ingredients well and place in a
small plastic container (like a cottage cheese container). Bury the
container to ground level. Clean it out as needed"

If you are using DE please remember that you have to put it where you think they may crawl and you will need to reapply. One application of DE is not going to get rid of your problem. The earwigs must crawl over the DE in order for it to be effective.

the last few nights the only bugs I have been finding is earwigs and I think onion magats. I even watch one earwig munching on the marigolds. I tried the rolled up paper for earwig traps with no luck. I did read the praying mantis will eat the earwigs so I will be checking into that. I am stating to wonder if having mulch on the ground around all the boxes is giving hiding places for the earwigs so I am wondering if neem oil spray would do any good if I sprayed all the mulch.

Model a man,

Earwigs ate all my parsley, spinach and chard before I waged war on them. I visited the nursery near my house and purchased a product called Sluggo Plus

Here is link to their info sheet:

http://www.montereylawngarden.com/pdf/sluggo-plus.pdf

Worked like a charm after one application!

Have wondered if any of you had luck or not with the post I did on trapping earwigs. They are not as thick here this year so I can’t relate to my past success with the traps. Someone did mention that the traps were not that effective. So here are notes cut from a post in Garden Web I plan to fortify the vrgetable oil with the underlined mixture below. Happy trapping.
"I read on a posting (somewhere) that earwigs can be detered from coming into the house if you sprinkle bay leaves around. I decided to try this in my pots. It worked! Now my petunias are doing nicely. All I did was sprinkle the bay leaves on top of the soil. Maybe if I break up the leaves next time the slugs won't visit either. The rough edges of the broken leaves might deter them. I imagine this may even work in the garden.

An easy way to reduce the earwig population is to take a few rolled up newspaper(s) (secured with a rubberband), wet it and leave it out overnight near your affected garden beds. In the morning dispose of the newspaper in a plastic bag, (being careful not to spill the ends or unroll the paper). It will be filled with earwigs. They love to hide in dark damp places. Secure the plastic bag so the little creeps dont escape and throw it away.
I printed out the various posts and made a mix similar to what was recommended - 1 tbsp each of vegetable oil, molasses, and soy sauce. I put some in two cans, and placed the cans in the garden. This morning, both to my horror and delight, both cans are FULL of dead earwigs!!! On one hand I'm thrilled that this method has helped me more than anything else I've tried (soap, pyrethrin, and rotenone). On the other hand, I can see that I have a large population, and will need to continue this tactic for quite some time.

It may take a few days for the mixture to "age" as mine took that long to get going last year before filling up quickly. Be sure to mix the two ingredients good as oil and soy sauce separate into layers. I mix a batch in a separate container first then pour it into the yogurt cup type traps. Place traps at the base of the target plants.

A grower of show dahlias puts vaseline on the stems of her flowers to keep earwigs out!
I would be tempted to use Diatomaceous earth. The only problem is that I would not like the idea of breathing the dust, so I would wet the plants or ground first and apply it in moderation at the base of the most important plants. I saved a passion flower vine this way. I must have had the european earwigs as the leaves were indeed being chewed by them. I could watch them chewing.
And of course, there's the pick-squish-stomp method...or you can drop them into soapy water as they are caught.
Diazanon and Sevin sprays are also effective. Be sure to read and follow all package directions and cautions EXACTLY . “ These last two chemicals mite not appeal to strict organic gardeners but I do use a little seven close to my house and away from my vegetables.

They decimated my marigolds. Beets were a total failure. About 10% of the beans made it up the pole (although cracks in the bamboo turned out to be a favourite daytime sleeping place). I think the only reason why potatoes survived is cause they grew too fast.

I learnt a lot last year:

1. Diatomaceous earth only works when bone dry so is fine until it rains or there is a heavy morning due
2. They like dark wooden areas, so stick ant and earwig killer around garden sheds and fences especially in nooks and crannies like door hinges, door tops and between wooden slats.
3. They LOVE sleeping in lawn thatch. So de-thatch and get in early.
4. Through the summer I went out almost every night to squish them. Squishing killed more than any other method I have discovered.
5. Check points 2 and 4 - then shine a light on your garden fence and SQUISH!
6. They don;t like bright light so if you use a flash light at night, be subtle - as soon as the light hits them they will either run for cover or if on an upright façade will let go and drop instantly
7. While walking around the garden at night LOOK DOWN. There are loads running around the lawn.
8. They prefer baby plants so try to grow stuff as much as possible before planting out - its the only way marigolds will survive the onslaught.
9. The only plants that were not attacked were those in a new raised bedding area (2 foot high). Toward the end of the year there was an indication maybe the earwigs had got there so I suspect this year they will infest it - li'l buggers
10. Don't show the wife - she is liable to scream (well, mine did anyway)

MODEL A MAN: how did the nematodes do? Your my only hope Obi......