The roly-polies are eating my beans!

I've been wondering what has been eating my spouting beans and tonight I discovered, checking at about sunset, many roly-polies nibbling on my emerging pole bean sprouts! What gives? I thought they only ate dead and decaying matter, not living plants! Well, they are turning my living plants into dead and decaying ones. What do I do?

(Roly poly = woodlouse, pill bug, isopod)

Yes, they will indeed eat living matter. I've had a problem with them, too. Sluggo Plus will kill them and slugs. I buy mine here:

http://www.wormsway.com/results.aspx?t=prod&search=sluggo+plus

Be sure to buy Sluggo Plus - the regular Sluggo will not kill sow bugs, but will kill slugs.

I second Sluggo Plus. It works like a charm for me.

You can also try diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the plants.

I've also read that coffee grounds deters them, but I've not tried it.

Here is what the Dirt Doctor, Howard Garrett just sent by email on Coffee GROUNDS:

"I have used and recommended coffee grounds as an organic fertilizer for years, but they have another important use. To control slugs, snails and pillbugs, broadcast coffee grounds around plants troubled by the little beasts. To run pests off effectively, use anywhere from 2 – 5 lbs of coffee grounds per 100 square feet.

Slugs in most cases come right up to coffee grounds but wouldn't cross over. Not only is the product organic and works great, but it also replaces one of the worst toxic pesticides on the market, Metaldehyde. Diluted coffee is also an excellent organic fertilizer, especially for orchids, African violets and may have some of the same pest control powers. It's probably worth a try.

Coffee contains N-P-K, trace minerals and the food stuff to stimulate the growth of beneficial microbes. The best part is that coffee grounds are basically free. Just ask your local restaurants or coffee shops to put them in a container provided by you. At the least, save and use your own coffee grounds at home. We do every day.

Coffee tends to develop a green or blue-green fungus that looks like mold. Don’t worry - that’s good. The green fungus is really beneficial (Trichoderma species) while the blue-green one is reported to be moderately beneficial. In any case, moldy coffee is great to use directly in the garden, compost pile and on interior plants.

Here is some research on the subject from USDA – ARS.

COFFEE - Slugs and snails hate caffeine, researchers have discovered. Robert Hollingsworth of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Hilo, Hawaii, and his colleagues discovered this secret while testing caffeine sprays against the coqui frog, an introduced species that infests potted plants. They found that a 1 to 2 percent caffeine solution killed most of the slugs and snails in two days. Concentrations as low as 0.01 percent repelled the pests. A cup of instant coffee contains about 0.05 percent caffeine, and brewed coffee has more.

Coffee grounds can also be used to repel slugs and snails, but a caffeine solution is much more effective. Caffeine is more effective against slugs than metaldehyde products. The United States bans metaldehyde residues in food, but classifies caffeine as safe. It may even qualify as organic, adds Hollingsworth."

I put my coffee grounds in my garden but I never thought of putting them around seedlings. That's a great idea and so easy.

What I did today was pull some weeds in my garden and found volunteer tomato plants so I guess these will be my "fall" tomatoes. Its strange to me that they are just now coming up like 3" tall, Im going to move them so they have room to grow. Im looking forward to seeing what kind they are, by the end of last year all the vines had grown together. But the end of last year was Dec.2010.

If you grow OP plants you'll have true varieties with your volunteers. I have a couple coming up, too; one in my tomato rows and another next to the hot peppers. I'm curious to see what they'll end up being, too! Might be hard to tell, though, since not all of my tomatoes are particularly distinctive.

Yes, my plants are all OP but isn't there a chance they crossed with their neighbor? Since spacing isn,t my strong point.

I'm not sure about that. I haven't worried about it myself.

Thanks, the coffee grounds will be going out to the bean box instead of the compost pile. If that doesn't do the trick I'll investigate the Sluggo Plus. I appreciate the help.

-Pat

I just sprinkled some more diatomaceous earth around the row where I put in new chard transplants, to deter them.

I'm always concerned that diatomaceous earth will harm earthworms, plus I think it only works when dry - not sure about that.

Hmmm, I had never heard that it would harm earthworms! And I have been assuming that even if it gets wet, it will still work once it dries out.

Yes, I think once it dries out diatomaceous earth should still work. I've read two sides as to whether or not it hurts earthworms. I remember Paul James the Gardener Guy saying it WOULD harm earthworms, so I never use it in the garden.

Well, it seems to me that the question is.....should we let out plants be devoured or should we be prudent about using diatomaceous earth around our plants because, really, earthworms multiply faster than rabbits. Coffee grounds sound great, but I throw them into my compost all the time, yet I have slugs in the compost right along with the coffee grounds??? When I use my compost around my plants, I have to resort to some kind of bait until they are dead or gone. Of course, I live the PNW. Slugs love us.

>> Yes, my plants are all OP but isn't there a chance they crossed with their neighbor? Since spacing isn,t my strong point.

I have read that tomatoes mostly fertilize themselves, with rather little cross-polination from adjacent plants.

Apparently, tomato blooms are self-fertile and usually pollinate themselves before or shortly after opening. I've also read that most insects are not strongly drawn to tomato blooms in the few days they are receptive to pollination. One estimate was 2-5% cross-pollination outside the tropics, assuming the variety didn't have a very unusual shape of (style? stigma? anther?)

http://www.kokopelli-seed-foundation.com/tomatoes.html

Corey

Tomatoes have "complete flowers" and are wind pollinated, so very little chance of crossing.

I've never heard that DE harms earthworms - DE works on hard bodied insects not soft bodied ones. A search of the Internet using "site:.edu xxx xxx" to pull up university based info doesn't provide any reference/caution that DE harms earthworms.

Jo

where would i get DE? would my local home depot or Lowe's have it, or do I have to order it online?

thank you.

I ended up ordering it on the web because I couldn't find it locally.

Look for "horticultural Diatomaceous Earth" (DE) - not the same as used for swimming pools - at your local nurseries and box stores. Read the ingredients list - some commercial products contain other pesticides and look for the ORMI sticker on the product indicating it can be used by certified organic farmers. You can call businesses that cater to organic gardeners before wasting gas and time looking for DE.

Read the safety precautions on the label and wear a dust mask when loading/applying - you don't want to inhale the dust. A "Dustin-Mizer" applicator (or similar tool) that blows a mist of DE on the plant is handy. Keep your powder dry and sealed between uses.

Note: DE doesn't work on roly-polly, sowbugs...

Jo

This message was edited Jun 15, 2011 9:03 AM

Then what does it work on? It seemed to make a difference with my young beans, which I assumed were being attacked by sow bugs.

I know tomatoes are wind pollinated but if you had seen how intertwined my tomatoes were you would understand. They were a mess. I have 2 volunteer seedlings that have come up side by side, I moved one, and the foliage looks completely different. These are just for fun anyway so I'm really looking forward to seeing what the fruit looks like. I think I remember what was planted there last year. Its just a little fun in this Dang heat.: )

I was wondering about the DE and pill bugs. It seemed like their hard ectoskeleton would protect them from the DE. They did eat my REd Malabar spinach seedlings last night. Yesterday I could see sprouts this morning I just saw pillbugs. Soaking more seeds and giving it another try, with a different approach.

gg-maybe cutworms on your beans?

Maybe cutworms but I saw pillbugs - not exactly in the act but there.

I have a feeling its pillbugs. They are supposed to only eat decaying plant material, but it doesnt take them long to get the plant to the point of decaying and they come in herds too.

1lisac,
I agree with you: PILLBUGS eat every in my garden too!
Tried DE and Sluggo plus ... no way ... they just came back ... and I don't blame them. my veggies are delicious.
So here how I solved the problem: I start all my veggies indoor and transplanted them out when their steams is a little woody.
I also plant more plants because I know thay might divore one of them.
I trow a lot of lettuce seeds in the fall and they don't seem to bother them ...
So I just learn to live with them !!

pillbugs eat my radishes. i have caught several in flagrante delicto.

I have the little B#(*@#D's too, they're under the mulch enjoying the damp, they come out at night, eat seedlings, anything with leaves trailing on the ground and any plant they can crawl on. They decimated a passion flower in a gal. pot that happened to blow over in the wind one night! I just haven't had that much control using DE in damp conditions, if it works for you great!

Rabbits like to set up their nurseries in my garden; if the babies are present I let them be until they leave. The hole, lined with hair and hay mulch. becomes home to billions of pillbugs (which I remove), so borrowing from the rabbits, I'm going to use buried pet food cans to trap them. I know its a loosing battle, they can't be eliminated and there's no way to have a vegetable garden without moisture, mulch and plants they feed on!!!

http://citybugs.tamu.edu/factsheets/landscape/veggie/ent-1006/ ...Texas A&M says this about their life cycle and habits - depressing.

Jo

Depressing is right! I had to laugh at the sentence:

I don't like pickels ... I don't understand them ... puh puh we don't have them in Italy ...
I grow sweet cukes. This is my third year growing cukes and this year I am growing the sweetest ever.
I am growing all parthenocarpic varieties, I bought them from Johnny's.
They seem to produce cukes even in this strange 100 F degrees weather.
My favorite is Tasty Jade, Corinto, Dive, Socrate, ... and othet I don't remember.
Today I harvested lots of them ... yummy !!!

What a nice picture! I grow Diva too, but I didn't realize that it was parthenocarpic. I just treat it like the other cukes. I also have Tanja and a pickling variety.