I had a horrible earwig problem in my dahlias one year in Seattle. A man who
was a volunteer for Seattle Tilth told me to cut pieces of corrugated
cardboard from a box, about 4X10 or there abouts, and dampen it and then lay
it on the ground next to the plants, in the morning you can check these and
they will be full of earwigs, they crawl into the damp little tunnels for
the daytime, and you can dispose of them accordingly. It took about a week
of this and the earwigs were finally pretty much gone. It's worth a try to
see if that will work for you.

I had tried the beer dish to get rid of slugs and that used to catch quite a
few earwigs too but I drowned more big black wood beetles than slugs and
earwigs combined so I quite that. Those big black beetles LOVE baby slugs
and slug and earwig eggs.

I just dug out my old Rodale's Garden Insect book and looked up what they
recommend. It says the natural predator for earwigs is the Tachnid Fly. You
can attract these insects by planting herbs in the Umbelliferea family,
parsley, dill, Queen Anne's Lace, and letting them flower. I don't know if
you can buy these as a beneficial insect from a supplier or not. I hope
these suggestions and information help you some.

Val


"Fleemo" wrote in message
om...
My Butterfly Bush is under an attack by earwigs. At night I go out
with a flashlight to find nearly every single leaf being munched on by
a marauding earwig. Looking for organic retalliation, I read here
that a tuna can of cooking oil will lure the earwigs to their death.
I tried this remedy with Peanut oil, yet not one single earwig has
taken the nosedive o' death in the pool of oil. Does peanut oil just
not work? Should I be using corn oil instead, or seek another
solution?