T wrote:
....
Speaking of bribes, my eggplant's leaves where just
skeletons with the leaf part missing. Couldn't figure
out who was eating them. Then one fateful night watering,
I discovered it was the stinking earwigs. Many have lost
their lives since then. And my leaves have recovered.

when the beans first sprout there is some
creature that puts holes in the leaves. i've
never bothered to find out what it actually is
because the plants outgrow their ability to do
much damage. it's never killed a plant that
i've noticed.

i am all for live-and-let-live if i can get
some sort of harvest. if i'm lucky i will
have a few seeds from the Edamame plants...


Those stinkers sure do love eggplant. And I know
where to find them at night. Sort of like catnip
for earwigs.

In the day, they love under my bag of peat moss. So
every afternoon, I rattle the bag and stomp away.
Down to one yesterday, from about 200 a few weeks ago.
A carnage ensued.

Death to Earwigs!

some people make traps for them out of
upside down pots full of straw stuck on
poles. i've never tried that. really, i
don't think i've seen them in the gardens
here much at all.

for snails and slugs the idea is similar to
what you are doing. put down boards along the
areas where they are damaging plants and then
go out early in the morning and flip the
boards and remove any snails or slugs. we have
not had much of a problem from either of those
too.

i really like having a functioning ecosystem
i just wish we had a few more top predators for
deer, wabbits and chippiemunks.

ah, well, today gotta get out and pick some
more cucumbers. hope there's enough to make
some more dill pickles.


songbird