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Sun, Feb 20, 11 at 21:57
| Not sure if I should post here or insect management but, my compost has tons of roly poly bugs and thats ok. But, now they are inside my containers and chewing up my lettuce, parsley, beans, everything. They sit around the soil level and devour the plant. They are NOT snails, slugs. They are the little crustaceans with lots of legs. I've tried to drown them in cayenne pepper, but they eventually roll over and walk away. There are just so many. This means war! Has anyone found a way to keep them in check? It is an inside greenhouse solar room. Toads? Ducks? Anteaters? Other bugs? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Numerous species of birds, including chickens and ducks, toads, snakes all relish sow bugs and roly polys. High levels of organic matter provide the environment that these wee buggers like, cool, moist with lots of decaying organic matter to eat. If these wee buggers are pests in the garden there may not be sufficient levels of organic matter causing them to eat plants which are not a normal part of their diet. Most everything I find about control refers to eliminating them from inside the house. |
Here is a link that might be useful: PillBugs and SowBugs
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- Posted by dchall_san_antonio 8 San Antonio (My Page) on Mon, Feb 21, 11 at 23:18
| For some reason organic gardeners don't report invasions of sow bugs. Before I changed to organic I remember having so many of them the concrete was black and slippery. It was really gross. It was many years before I went organic and I don't remember what I used. It might have been Sevin. Wouldn't use that any more but back then I did not know any better. Birds are an excellent approach. Put up a bird house, bird bath, and/or bird feeder to attract them to the garden. |
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| dschall, I consider myself an organic gardener but I have lots more pills bugs now than when I used chemical ferts and pesticides. When I spread compost, it's usually crawling with pill bugs, but they never seem to damage my plants. Maybe it's attributable to what Kimm says, they'll go first for decaying OM and they find enough of that in my soil. Also, I have clay soil, which holds moisture pretty well. They seem to like the moisture. Karen |
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- Posted by californian 10 (My Page) on Tue, Feb 22, 11 at 13:18
| Young tender seedlings are definately a part of Roly Poly's everyday diet. Sprinkle some snail killer granules around each seedling and you will probably find dozens of dead roly polys surrounding it that would have ate the seedling if they hadn't encountered the snail killer first.. Once the seedlings grow a bit the Roly Polys tend to leave them alone, you just have to get them past the young tender stage. |
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| sow bugs are good recyclers, they will be there due to the organic material in your garden, they will have little or no interest in your plants if you keep plenty or that material round for them to eat ie.,. mulch they love it. len |
Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page
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