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birdsnblooms

Earwigs

birdsnblooms
10 years ago

Howdy,

I posted a thread regarding earwigs on another forum, and was told to check out the Veggie Forum.

We have quite a few earwigs in our yard. They hide under pots, our bird feeder... Actually, they hide anywhere that's dark.

I'm not sure what they eat, but since I was told to try this forum, those creatures probably munch on garden veggies.
How awful!

Does anyone know how to rid these creatures? I'd rather not use chemicals, so if there's an organic way, I'd appreciate information on what to use.

Also, I heard they lay eggs. Does anyone know what their eggs look like? Color, size, etc.

Thanks, Toni

Comments (9)

  • ltilton
    10 years ago

    Earwigs are ubiquitous and rarely do enough damage to warrant control measures. Essentially, in circumstances such as you describe, you're talking about attacking the entire insect population on your property.

    If you have earwigs causing extensive damage to one particular crop, treat that crop. Otherwise, earwigs are something it's best just to live with.

  • birdsnblooms
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Itlton... No, I do not want to rid the entire insect population in my yard..On the contrary.

    The only pests I want to rid are earwigs and ants. The ant population has increased 10 times higher than previous years.
    Earwigs end up in my house plant containers. Plants that are brought inside the house in autumn.

    Because of health reasons, we didn't plant veggies this year. However, in previous years, veggie leaves were chewed. We assumed rabbits were doing the nibbling.

    We found hundreds of earwigs in the garden area, but we didn't know they ate veggies or veggie foliage.

    As I stated above, I wanted to know if anyone here knew a way to rid earwigs without using chemicals. Toni

  • woohooman San Diego CA zone 10a
    10 years ago

    Google "earwig trap oil and soy"

    Diatomaceous earth, but it will kill ALL crawling insects.

    Kevin

  • CarloMartin947
    10 years ago

    Pioneer organic gardener, Alan Chadwick, had a great technique for getting rid of earwigs. First, take a 4" clay pot and fill it half full with dry straw. Then invert it and place it on a wooden stake driven into the ground, The stake should stick out of the ground about 8" or so. This creates a very attractive nest for earwigs. They will climb up the stake, and hide among the nice dry straw at the top. Periodically you just need to empty the straw and all the earwigs into the chicken yard (or otherwise dispose of them). Easy, organic, and effective.

    For more good information about Alan Chadwick and his organic methods, see the following website. The "techniques" section has a lot on various plants and their cultures.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Alan Chadwick

  • uscjusto
    10 years ago

    I have an earwig infestation in my compost pile but not my garden. They love decomposing OM, and I don't think they do any damage to healthy growing plants.

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    10 years ago

    Sorry to say, but earwigs do a lot of damage. I had a large infestation a few years ago. I couldn't figure out what was doing so much damage to my plants. I could never see beetles or any other bug doing damage during the day. It was only when I went out at night with a flashlight that I found earwigs all over the damaged plant. They loved echinaceas and basil and many other plants. I have them again this year in smaller numbers.

    For control, I just went out at night with a 'head flashlight' and a large paper cup of soapy water and just knocked them into it. It worked for me. I read about rolling up newspapers that were damp and leaving them around the garden, but that was too slow and didn't always work. They seem to be more prevelant when it is a rainy season.

  • Kosch
    10 years ago

    Just chiming in on the earwig damage. I always figured earwigs didn't do anything bad, other than crawl up your leg. This year was the first we've done a garden, mostly containers. Our main reason was wanting fresh strawberries. Well, shortly after the strawberries started, out came the earwigs. Check strawberries one day, almost ripe. Next day, perfectly ripe, full of holes. I can go out and catch the earwigs munching on them later at night.

    Been trying the insecticidal soap for about 5 weeks, no go. Going to try the oil/soy traps this weekend.

    I now hate earwigs with a passion!

  • rlemega
    10 years ago

    They have never really bothered me and I have them everywhere. They did get a bunch of strawberries but I am assuming they were starting to rot anyway. The most annoying thing about them is they love to hang out in my ears of corn.

  • richdelmo
    10 years ago

    Take the first paragraph from prariemoon2,s post and that is exactly the problem I had last year except it was mostly my bean cuc and a few annual flower seedlings that were being chewed by earwigs.

    YES earwigs damage and kill seedlings sorry to those who disagree but I watched.

    This year I again had a plentiful population of earwigs but used Bonide bug slug killer along with DE, IT WORKED all seedlings survived and grew to maturity. We had a very wet june but my earwigs were rapidly diminishing in numbers and only a few slugs. Not sure which eliminated the earwigs or if it was a combination of both but you can bet I will be doing the same each year that they are around.