we are having a problem this year of which we have never had. earwigs literally eating all of our plants. we have had to replant our beans 4 times , what i have been told to use is diatamaous earth. helps some but they skelonize the plant? any usefull information.

-- melanie Prows (stillaprows@aol.com), July 12, 2001

Answers

You are going to have to catch them at night, get yourself some string and tie a loop with a slip knot around one end and as you see them crawling around just lasso the little bruggers,LOL!!!!!

Just kidding,your going to have to trapped them during the day as they hide makes some traps using rolled up newspaper. place them throughout your garden and around your garden like under shrubs or against fences,etc. pick up the traps everyother day during mid- afternoon if possible and you can dump them in a bucket with detergent and water or crush them or burn them. This should relieve the problem but not 100%.

-- TomK (tjk@cac.net), July 12, 2001.

Do you have chickens? Ours love earwigs, well all bugs, and hunt them down. We let 4-5 of our hens into the garden an hour before dusk and they never seem to lift their head they are to busy hunting. They do take a nibble here and there but it's worth it to be rid of those little pests. Just my $.02 worth.

-- Kelle in MT. (kvent1729@aol.com), July 12, 2001.

One year we had them so bad they were eatting the leaves off our trees! You could go out at night and see a moving swarm all over them. It turned out that we had staked the trees with bamboo and they were living in side it. Also, we had a old sprinkler line that was broken and we just left it. They had made a home in that as well. We ripped the old sprinkler line and bamboo stakes out and our problems went away. I suggest you look around and see where they are living durning the day and try to get rid of it.

-- StoryBook Farm (mumaw@socket.net), July 12, 2001.

Earwigs can be abundant if you plants are crowded. Thin where you can and pick up dying and dead litter. Also, water in the morning only,allowing the ground to dry some by nightfall. I once planted lettuce too close together and they had a party running around at night on the cool,moist soil. During the day they had a nice place to hide from the sun. I lost all of my crop!

-- Viv Lander (century2kay@webtv.net), July 12, 2001.