Sowbugs

We have an ungodly amount of sowbugs in the soil around our home. We have 2 raised beds of vegetables and they are obnoxious. I thought that they fed on dead vegatation, but we pulled a few tomatoes from the beds that were covered with them...any ideas for treating the soil for these things? Thanks in advance :)

They'll eat tomatoes touching the ground, but are generally harmless. If that's the worst pest you have to deal with, you're in pretty good shape.

Frank

ps - turns out the sowbugs are in the same family of critters as shrimp

(edited for an afterthought)

This message was edited Sep 14, 2008 9:23 PM

I was just searching Dave’s Garden for what to do about sow bugs too! I also have raised beds and just planted our winter veggies. They are all over the dirt and eating the young cabbage plants. Any ideas what I should do or what is safe to use around our vegetable garden. We have thousands of them! And advise will be much appreciated.

Pillbugs will definitely eat small tomato seedlings, but I hadn't noticed them doing in cauliflower or broccoli. I pull mulch back to expose plain dirt and put a 1 inch collar cut from a plastic cup around small tomato seedlings .

I have used dry sharp sand mounded slightly & spread a few inches around each seedling. The drawback is that watering messes it up.

The good news is that if you have lots of the sowbugs, you must have a lot of organic material. LOL.

Frank

I had that problem with sowbugs once. Then i sunk some broken pots in a shady place in the garden for pet toads to dwell in. When we had a good rain and the toads came out in the neighborhood, i took several and placed them in their new toad abodes, telling them not to run off. Boy did those critters get fat off the sowbugs. And they are low maintenance. Just an occasional wetting of their home to keep it comfortably moist for them. Soon the sowbugs were under control.

Toadaly yours,

Les

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12148-60160--,00.html

My experience with pillbugs is this ... I had some Armeria plants in a flowerbed. For a while they grew fine, then all of a sudden they went downhill. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with them until I dug them out of the ground. There were hundreds of pillbugs eating the roots of the plants. I tried to get the pillbugs out, but of course there were some left in the soil. They finally devoured the roots. I guess it was a type of experiment to see if the plants would survive. They didn't. I never did plant anything else there. Now when I see pillbugs in my soil, I say, "UH OH."

Karin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~