I've had way less earwigs this year, and I couldn't understand why. They are usually always a problem in things like strawberries. I found out at night that it was because a bunch of frogs set up residence in my garden. I caught them on the hunt at night when I headed into the garden to bring in some seedlings before a storm was about to roll in. I'm now in the process of making them a tiny little pond to hang out in. Hopefully they reproduce and I have a little army of pest eaters working for me.
@@ht6684 I figured out it was actually the mulch I put down for easier watering. They were hiding in it during the day, and coming out at night. Removed the straw, and the problem hasn’t been as bad. Still the occasional hole, but nowhere near as bad after I removed their “hideout”.
I have them in my yellow raspberry this year and they are decimating my plants. No dead leaves on the ground, and they are trellissed, but those earwigs like to be under the big leaves where the berries grow! I have tried cinnamon and peppermint oil, but haven't found anything yet that helps. Any suggestions anyone?
I guess your suggestions help but if you still have plenty what hope is there 😢. Earwigs like to crawl into dark places before morning. I lay some copper pipes at the base of some things, especially lettuce. In the morning I pick up the pipe and bang one end into a pail of soapy water. Works like a charm. Oddly satisfying to see all those dead earwigs. After about a week, I put in fresh soapy water and start over. I have tried dishes of oil mixed with soya sauce but it's kinda messy but it does work. Happy gardening from Ontario
Im going crazy ive just learned how important it is to mulch and now the mulch is gonna keep one of my problems here im so confused but i love you Luke and may god bless you and your family thanks for helping us hard working gardeners i know i need it😊
Hey great video. I really want to say thank you for the seed sale, and always keeping your seeds priced low. I'm now stocked for 2025 gardening season. Happy growing, Luke.💚🌻
Oh this is eerie. I literally just googled how to get rid of earwigs in my garden about an hour ago because they devoured all of my Napa cabbage and kale. 😂 Talk about perfect timing!
I'm glad to know these little pests actually don't go into your ears as you are sleeping. I grew up (I'm 81) being told they do, and have been fearful all these years. When I found one in my bedroom last week after discovering them in my garden, I just freaked out and couldn't sleep. LOL! Thanks for this helpful info.
My sister had one actually crawl in her ear when we were sleeping outside and we had to go to the hospital to get it pulled out. She was screaming in pain 😢.
My daughter had one go into her ear actually. She woke up in the middle of the night and was crying about her ear, we assumed it was just an ear infection, so my husband put a drop of ear oil in her ear, and out came an ear wig! It was the grossest thing ever and her ear was bleeding after.
You read my mind! I've gone to war on my earwigs this week. I needed to mulch because of the massive maple dominating my yard sucking up the rainwater and was anticipating hot dry July. Then we got a lot of rain this year. 🙄 Beer traps, and Safer's 3 in 1 spray are helping. Peas, beans and zucchini were getting decimated. Today I actually had some non-chewed leaves! Huzzah!
This info like you said is opposite how I like to do in my garden - leaf mulch is building my soil so nice and weed control - I’ve been using Bondi Organic Sluggo plus only where I find an earwig nest it’s helped a lot because that’s also where the slugs hang out😉
This year has been wretched with earwigs both in the garden and the house. I need to order some DE. In the meantime, i had some expired vegetable oil. Put it in a shallow dish and inset it into the ground of the raised bed that was affected the worst -- at least 50 of the little buggers drowned themselves overnight 😝
It works better if you cover your traps, and they don't need to be level with the ground. Those buggers climb quite easily, and they like to hide during the day.
Thank you, Luke! I have been fighting this Earwig problem all summer! Mostly in my flower pots! When I water, they all come climbing out! I am using DE. It has helped some what, but yes, I have had more problems this year than ever!
This was very useful information. This is the first year I have noticed earwig damage in my garden. They got into a couple of my broccli heads. I live on a lake in Micigan and I dipped the heads into the lake and turned the earwigs into fish food. I have a heavily wooded lake front lot and the only place where there is enough sun is down by the lake. It is ususally a very good place for a garden because even is dry years the soil remains moist but that apparently does favor the earwigs. This is the first year that I have noticed damage from earwigs. We chip and mulch the leaves from our trees so every year I have coverd the garden with leaf mulch. It does reduce the effort to weed the garden but I didn't realize the problem it was creating with earwigs. I will skip the leaf mulch this fall. Thanks for the information.
It’s insane how many ear wigs and potato bugs are in and around the garden this year. I’m not good about removing cuttings from plants and weeds that I pull (often just leave them on the ground) and it’s hard to get all the leaves away from the ground. I’m sure the worst part is all the wood mulch that we have. In the past, I used containers filled with oil and soy sauce in the garden and that has helped a ton, but the mix is quite gross. I think I’m going to do that again.
SYMPATHY FOR THE EARWIG One interesting thing I've discovered about earwigs as I've gone around the garden and yard turning rocks for my hens is that the mother earwig stays with her clutch of eggs, sitting protectively over them. Sometimes, I find both adult insects guarding their eggs, but that's only been with the larger ones with red and yellow markings on their bodies. Further, once the eggs hatch, the parent again is found with them, like a hen with her chicks. One day I trimmed away the lawn edge and subsequently removed an earwig's clutch of eggs, but not her. She ran in circles, circling, circling , circling, looking for her babies for hours. She never left the spot where she'd left them. Not super intelligent, but gifted with an admirable parental instinct. I had some compassion on the little insect as a kind. But that doesn't prevent me from inviting my birds from eating them or setting out oil traps to reduce their population. I really hate them chewing up my bright lights chard.
I can believe it (that they're 3x the population this year). And of course this was the year I planted TONS of potatoes. LOL Unfortunately, our property is densely wooded (except where I've cleared for my garden), and I'm not raking 18 acres worth of leaves every year- we do well just to get them off the driveway and walking paths around our house! 😅 Hopefully my guineas are helping to control them a bit this year! 😁
That stuff doesn't work in my observation. Use many oil traps instead. I am always relived to see dozens dead in them every day. There are good and bad traps though. I use containers with holes punched below the lids. As in my main comment.
They are definitely worse this year, they keep taking up residence in my romaine lettuce... and I can definitely confirm that I let leaves chill in my beds over winter, and as you said we had a super mild winter. I will definitely keep these tips in mind for fall / next year (and while pruning!!) I would love it if you could make a video about your favourite tips for controlling the growth/spread of indeterminate tomatoes? Mine have completely taken over my beds this year (which I wasn't expecting, because I used the exact same seeds and beds etc as last year!)
yeah they were trouble for me in our wet spring this year. still managed a decent potato yield in spite of their damage. good tips 👍i used the oil trap method with good success. not sure if it made a difference but also used diatomaceous earth.
My chickens love them. We hunt them and grow them. If I leave a can out overnight with a little catfood in it they will fill the can with a mornig chicken snack.
@@carolb5677 a catfood can with catfood juice left where the bugs live they will crawl in and they can't get out. The chickens will eat them from the can. You could use the method to get rid of them as well.
I love this idea! We have chickens too. But we haven’t let them out because they eventually start devouring our garden 😅😅 I’ve heard they can’t eat tomato and pepper leaves and they immediately go for those.
@@aiisshhaaa Yes, they definitely require supervision in the garden Lol. They are great for getting the garden ready and going through it when it is done growing though. I hope you catch a lot of bugs for them.
I’ve had way more roly polies this year as opposed to earwigs. For earwig infestations in past years I would go out at night with a headlamp & manually pick them off of my plants & squish them. A few rounds of that every night for a few nights or so took care of the problem!
I started to get a ton of Earwigs last year and they loved all my lettuce, I have a bad feeling based off the last two years I will never get rid of them, they have even made it into my house and I feel like I battle them daily.
My Greenstalk is an earwig hotel. Don't know how to dry it out without killing my plants. They love the cardboard mulch in my garden too. Slugs have been a problem in previous years but now I have earwigs and snails. Don't know where the snails came from but they like the damp too.
I had a small Earwig problem and a huge Pill Bug problem this year. I know Pill Bugs are supposed to be good guys but there was a total infestation that was like a horror movie. They were chewing on every small plant at the base and they ate/ruined hundreds of strawberries. I could not direct sow anything, they would destroy it immediately. I hate using products to take care of this kind of stuff but I had to resort to using Sluggo Plus. It saved me! If anyone is interested make sure you buy the PLUS version. It also handles Earwigs and it's certified organic. hard to find in a store, had to order online.
Birds do be beneficial. 😂 A free way to remove all pests is lay your dirt in a thin layer on a tarp, water it a bit and keep it moist throughout the day, after 24 hours the birds will eat everything that comes crawling up. Do this enough and Birds will start flocking to your area to help out.
Earwigs have been crazy this year. They were even getting in my house. It was because I left the mulch on over the winter and had a mild winter like Luke said. I got rid of all the mulch and put some Sluggo Plus and they're gone. It's been raining so much, I don't feel I really need mulch. I'd rather water more than have to deal with earwigs.
Not only am dealing with a surplus of earwigs this year but I am also dealing with a new to me pest the lilly beetle. My garden has been assaulted by bugs this year.
Great video. I've had earwigs like crazy this year... worse outside of the garden though. But in the garden, we had them near the tops of the corn (~2-3' at the time) and dusted with DE in that case.
Yep, I've found them in the kitchen, bathroom, even just scampering across the hardwood floor. They seem to be lessening in the past week or so. Here's hoping they're winding down! Sheesh!
@@nagasraka7290 , I’ve even had one in the hollow handle of my Bic razor. Went to reach for my razor in the shower, and…what is that dark thing inside the handle?!? Gack!!
I took late night photos of my garden flowers throughout this summer. FYI, there were ALWAYS earwigs ~36” off the ground happily munching the yellow centers (or disk florets) of my Shasta daisies.
Earwigs have been huge on the upper part of my property, but down in the lower part, where the garden is in the middle of a fallow field, not so much, thank goodness. I do have some cucurbits and some tomatoes sprawling in one area, so they are on the ground, but aside from there, I keep everything trimmed off the ground. But I do plant marigolds everywhere too, so that helps. As I was telling my husband just today was that I typically practice chop and drop, but I may delay that this year, just in case earwigs find their way down and we have another mild winter. Because of recent mild winters I also got potato bugs for the very first time. That was an ordeal.
Earwigs have been a problem. But in our garden the Pillbugs are horrible this year. They took out sever sprouting beans in June and early July. I know our rotting wood raised beds are a big contributing factor.
Same here Pill Bugs were destroying everything that was remotely small enough for them to eat and they ruined hundreds of strawberries. For the 1st time ever I had to use a product on them. Sluggo PLUS from Monterey. It's safe and organic and it has been a miracle for me. It also takes care of Earwigs.
Same here! I used the nuclear option and put down sevin powder in the flower beds. That did the trick early on. May have to do it again before summer is over. They ate EVERYTHING...especially marigolds!
Thsnk you! I love your channel. You always cover some things that other gardencasters do not. I'm in the Kansas City area. I haven't seen earwigs yet, but I'm going to clear out all the dead foliage anyway as a precautionary practice.
Earwigs pinch hurts. Also, that sounds weird because Iowa where I was at anyway did they have any earwigs until about two years ago. And I remember seeing them when I visited the Teton mountains, which I think it’s colder in the winter than here.
We have had ridiculous level of earwigs for a few years now. In the house, falling off door jams and in every pot I have. I use grass clippings as mulch in the garden. I still get lots of them, but they eat the clippings instead of my plants. I do have to shake them out of the lettuce and cabbage though. They also love the growing tips of my sunchokes and sunflowers.
Alabama here. I had to stop using mulch in my containers because it “invited” them, and gave them a place to hide during the day. Still get the occasional, but not too much damage.
This is so frustrating! I do cover my raised beds in the Fall with shredded leaves to protect and feed my soil over the winter - if this is causing the earwigs to make my garden their home, what am I supposed to do as a bed covering this year? Truly, my soil stayed beautifully moist and rich in worms but also loaded with pill bugs, slugs and earwigs.
I read and tried a combination of soy sauce and olive oil in a tiny container partially buried in the soil with a lid on it with holes popped into it at the base of my corn and that seemed to work.
I put out "slug traps" made by putting tuna cans near the raised beds. I baited them with very dilute sourdough starter (yeast). I did get slugs, but 10-20 times as many earwigs, then the flies also drowned in it! Still an infestation, but now the seedlings are surviving.
I find earwigs on my flowers and cucumber vines at night. The adults eat the cucumber flowers, the nymphs, the leaves. I knock them into cup of soapy water, but I also sprayed a solution of neem oil with peppermint soap probably 5 separate times and trust me, I give them an "earful" while I attack them. 😂I noticed that they housed in my fencepost caps so I killed those and treated the caps. I then switched over to to DE a couple times. Although there are a lot less, earwigs are still found every night in the cucumber flowers at the top of my trelis, so i am going to put a ring of vaseline around the stems, as I read that helps. SW Michigan. Oh, and I removed what mulch there was from last year when I planted because, earwigs.
Camping & sleeping on the ground, I actually had an earwig crawl into my ear. It really hurt. It came out by shining a flashlight into my ear and it went toward the light. My mom said they occasionally had them in their dog ears.
I have earwigs the worst in my beats. Which makes sense they like the cool damp under the leaves. I heard this method somewhere so I thought I’d try it. I got some very small cake/muffin tins and filled them with beer. Placed them around and slightly into my beet patch. The next day I checked and found pan fulls of dead earwigs. Gross, I know, but it seemed to help cut them back.
🤔 ahhhh! I keep my compost pile near one of my garden beds. It is filled mainly shredded leaves, clippings and manure. I noticed earwigs in that garden this year.
I've had more earwigs this year for sure. Not just in the garden, but they clogged up my hummingbird feeders until I smeared the stands and hangers with cooking oil. When the sun heats up the stands, the oil turns tacky. This prevents earwigs AND ants.
Ive been battling with earwigs since last year. This year I used sluggo with iron phosphate. They havent disapeared but they are not eating my plants like they used to. Between the earwigs and the cucumber beetles my plant leaves looked like doillies. I cant get Sluggo plus in Canada but If you are in the U.S. you can buy it it will reduce the population.
A gardening channel this year recommended planting radishes with potatoes so I did. Last year earwigs desiminated my potatoes. None this year I planted radishes with taters.
I've had earwigs chewing my beautiful daisies. This is a thick grouping of 4 foot high daisies. I can clear the ground a bit when I cut them back for winter but they are just going to stay thick otherwise. I'm confused though. Another video was telling us to put mulch down to prevent hydrophobic soil....which I did and welcomed in a bunch of hungry pill bugs 😕 so I removed it. Apparently it could have welcomed the ear wigs but fortunately didn't.
You can use an empty tuna can half full of water a couple drops of soy sauce and a couple drops of cooking oil. Put near earwig infestation, it will be full in a few days.
They’ve come into my house now because the infestation is so bad! I unfortunately had to use an spray around the outside of our house because we have crawling babies and the DE isn’t helping. This year we are going to just buy a netting cover. We used a copper mesh around the base of our plants and it’s stopped them from feeding.
Some tips: use insecticidal soap. Let wild milkweed grow, they curl up in the leaves and can easily be killed. Dig in moist areas or around pernenials, you should find large quantities like nests. Use a torch to kill large quantities quickly, they can't outrun the torch 😅 Coffee with milk left in the garden for a few days to a week will attract and drown them. I don't know why this works, but I left my coffee outside once and figured it out. It did much better than the other traps. Leave a pile of litter to attract them, fill it with diamacious earth.
Because they are a beneficial insect in that they eat aphids, other garden pests and their eggs. They also eat winter moth caterpillars (Frostspanner) and their eggs.
Thank you for this info = I've been infested with ear wigs for several years & September October are worse cuz they become super active Every summer I research how to get rid of ear wigs & all the information keeps saying there good for the garden I don't like finding them inside most of my food when I cut stuff up to eat my Suppose to be a fresh harvest from my own yard
Keeping foliage off the ground is number one, however I find that cucumber foliage on the ground does not attract earwigs. Why is that ? Thanks for this informative video.
Just a heads up. Those pinchers on the back end definitely do pinch if they feel threatened. I’ve had one in my sweatshirt sleeve when I put it on 100% that thing pinched me! And it hurt
They have been horrible here in IN. I have neem oiled and leaf litter is at the very bottom of my raised garden beds. They are now coming out of my son’s toys that were left out over winter.
this is all great info, but does anyone know what product i can use to get them to go elsewhere and away from the garden? i already do all these tips, i even grew plants exclusively in containers using new soil - that did not work.
Now I'm really confused on our earwigs. My neighbor has hollyhocks. I mow for them and will pick a flower at eye level and always find at least one every time in the pedals. They also love my lettuce but not my tomatoes, but that might be because I trim my tomatoes and sow my lettuce thick
Ear wings totally fucked me up this year in central Florida. I cover everything in diatomaceous earth and that seems to have saved me a couple of cucumbers and cantaloupes, but I'll have to resolve this for next year if I want a real harvest.
Luckily I haven't had problems with these in my garden, but I do see one now and then in my house. I am having lots of ladybeetles in my garden though eating my cucumber and melon leaves. I have been picking them off and plain them in a jar with alcohol in it and that reduces the population but I am still going to need to get insect netting and some sort of insecticide next month when I have the money. Rain and humidity has really slowed down fruiting.
My brothers told me that myth. Scarred me for decades. I now just dislike them but they’re too abundant in my garden so I’m glad you released this video.
I'm a lazy gardener and do see earwigs especially at the base of my chard. I live in So. Calif. so damp ground is only a dream wish, I have to water mid day just to cool off plants otherwise I guess I would have to use shade cloth. Thankfully with all the sun and heat the fruit is so prolific loosing a few tomatoes isn't an issue.
I've had way less earwigs this year, and I couldn't understand why. They are usually always a problem in things like strawberries. I found out at night that it was because a bunch of frogs set up residence in my garden. I caught them on the hunt at night when I headed into the garden to bring in some seedlings before a storm was about to roll in. I'm now in the process of making them a tiny little pond to hang out in. Hopefully they reproduce and I have a little army of pest eaters working for me.
Frogs are great pest control. I have baby frogs on my property and they're just the cutest little creatures. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
A few years ago, they decimated my banana peppers. They ate a hole in all of them, ruined quite a few peppers.
@@choccolocco doing that to my pepperoncinis this year.
@@ht6684
I figured out it was actually the mulch I put down for easier watering. They were hiding in it during the day, and coming out at night. Removed the straw, and the problem hasn’t been as bad. Still the occasional hole, but nowhere near as bad after I removed their “hideout”.
I have them in my yellow raspberry this year and they are decimating my plants. No dead leaves on the ground, and they are trellissed, but those earwigs like to be under the big leaves where the berries grow! I have tried cinnamon and peppermint oil, but haven't found anything yet that helps. Any suggestions anyone?
I guess your suggestions help but if you still have plenty what hope is there 😢. Earwigs like to crawl into dark places before morning. I lay some copper pipes at the base of some things, especially lettuce. In the morning I pick up the pipe and bang one end into a pail of soapy water. Works like a charm. Oddly satisfying to see all those dead earwigs. After about a week, I put in fresh soapy water and start over. I have tried dishes of oil mixed with soya sauce but it's kinda messy but it does work. Happy gardening from Ontario
Im going crazy ive just learned how important it is to mulch and now the mulch is gonna keep one of my problems here im so confused but i love you Luke and may god bless you and your family thanks for helping us hard working gardeners i know i need it😊
These guys have absolutely taken over my garden
Hey great video. I really want to say thank you for the seed sale, and always keeping your seeds priced low. I'm now stocked for 2025 gardening season. Happy growing, Luke.💚🌻
Oh this is eerie. I literally just googled how to get rid of earwigs in my garden about an hour ago because they devoured all of my Napa cabbage and kale. 😂 Talk about perfect timing!
Same here, 6 napa cabbages for them, 0 for me. The wet year has helped the slugs and the earwigs make my first-year garden a mixed bag of results.
Ugh, same. My baby Napa cabbages were earwig snacks. :(
It’s not perfect timing lol RUclips is owned by google. They monitor your interests and show you videos you may like.
@@arielmcgillacuddy6640 Normally I would agree, but I caught this one live.
We've had LOTS this year too (Quebec, Canada) but the ducks are enjoying them thankfully.
I'm glad to know these little pests actually don't go into your ears as you are sleeping. I grew up (I'm 81) being told they do, and have been fearful all these years. When I found one in my bedroom last week after discovering them in my garden, I just freaked out and couldn't sleep. LOL! Thanks for this helpful info.
I can say that I have woke up at night before and seen one on my pillow! (Coincidence I know)
My sister had one actually crawl in her ear when we were sleeping outside and we had to go to the hospital to get it pulled out. She was screaming in pain 😢.
Better than cockroach, looking at you Floriduh.
My daughter had one go into her ear actually. She woke up in the middle of the night and was crying about her ear, we assumed it was just an ear infection, so my husband put a drop of ear oil in her ear, and out came an ear wig! It was the grossest thing ever and her ear was bleeding after.
You read my mind! I've gone to war on my earwigs this week. I needed to mulch because of the massive maple dominating my yard sucking up the rainwater and was anticipating hot dry July. Then we got a lot of rain this year. 🙄 Beer traps, and Safer's 3 in 1 spray are helping. Peas, beans and zucchini were getting decimated. Today I actually had some non-chewed leaves! Huzzah!
Diatomaceous earth kills earwigs and is organic. 👍
This info like you said is opposite how I like to do in my garden - leaf mulch is building my soil so nice and weed control - I’ve been using Bondi Organic Sluggo plus only where I find an earwig nest it’s helped a lot because that’s also where the slugs hang out😉
Diatomaceous earth kills earwigs organically. 😁👍
@@Jillany yep
This year has been wretched with earwigs both in the garden and the house. I need to order some DE. In the meantime, i had some expired vegetable oil. Put it in a shallow dish and inset it into the ground of the raised bed that was affected the worst -- at least 50 of the little buggers drowned themselves overnight 😝
It works better if you cover your traps, and they don't need to be level with the ground. Those buggers climb quite easily, and they like to hide during the day.
Thanks for this, im in MI and the wigs are crazy this year.
Thanks so much! I’ve seen several this year. I appreciate your tips.
Thank you, Luke! I have been fighting this Earwig problem all summer! Mostly in my flower pots! When I water, they all come climbing out! I am using DE. It has helped some what, but yes, I have had more problems this year than ever!
This was very useful information. This is the first year I have noticed earwig damage in my garden. They got into a couple of my broccli heads. I live on a lake in Micigan and I dipped the heads into the lake and turned the earwigs into fish food. I have a heavily wooded lake front lot and the only place where there is enough sun is down by the lake. It is ususally a very good place for a garden because even is dry years the soil remains moist but that apparently does favor the earwigs. This is the first year that I have noticed damage from earwigs. We chip and mulch the leaves from our trees so every year I have coverd the garden with leaf mulch. It does reduce the effort to weed the garden but I didn't realize the problem it was creating with earwigs. I will skip the leaf mulch this fall. Thanks for the information.
It’s insane how many ear wigs and potato bugs are in and around the garden this year. I’m not good about removing cuttings from plants and weeds that I pull (often just leave them on the ground) and it’s hard to get all the leaves away from the ground. I’m sure the worst part is all the wood mulch that we have. In the past, I used containers filled with oil and soy sauce in the garden and that has helped a ton, but the mix is quite gross. I think I’m going to do that again.
SYMPATHY FOR THE EARWIG
One interesting thing I've discovered about earwigs as I've gone around the garden and yard turning rocks for my hens is that the mother earwig stays with her clutch of eggs, sitting protectively over them. Sometimes, I find both adult insects guarding their eggs, but that's only been with the larger ones with red and yellow markings on their bodies. Further, once the eggs hatch, the parent again is found with them, like a hen with her chicks. One day I trimmed away the lawn edge and subsequently removed an earwig's clutch of eggs, but not her. She ran in circles, circling, circling , circling, looking for her babies for hours. She never left the spot where she'd left them. Not super intelligent, but gifted with an admirable parental instinct.
I had some compassion on the little insect as a kind.
But that doesn't prevent me from inviting my birds from eating them or setting out oil traps to reduce their population.
I really hate them chewing up my bright lights chard.
I can believe it (that they're 3x the population this year). And of course this was the year I planted TONS of potatoes. LOL Unfortunately, our property is densely wooded (except where I've cleared for my garden), and I'm not raking 18 acres worth of leaves every year- we do well just to get them off the driveway and walking paths around our house! 😅 Hopefully my guineas are helping to control them a bit this year! 😁
Diatomaceous Earth will help, I have been fighting them a few years and put this down around my plants.
Yup I ordered a 25lb bag of it this year for dusting my gardens once in a while. Makes a significant difference.
That stuff doesn't work in my observation. Use many oil traps instead. I am always relived to see dozens dead in them every day. There are good and bad traps though. I use containers with holes punched below the lids. As in my main comment.
They are definitely worse this year, they keep taking up residence in my romaine lettuce... and I can definitely confirm that I let leaves chill in my beds over winter, and as you said we had a super mild winter. I will definitely keep these tips in mind for fall / next year (and while pruning!!)
I would love it if you could make a video about your favourite tips for controlling the growth/spread of indeterminate tomatoes? Mine have completely taken over my beds this year (which I wasn't expecting, because I used the exact same seeds and beds etc as last year!)
I don’t have crops just some flowers and they were all over my lily plants along with lily beetles and Japanese beetles too! Always on the Lillies
yeah they were trouble for me in our wet spring this year. still managed a decent potato yield in spite of their damage. good tips 👍i used the oil trap method with good success. not sure if it made a difference but also used diatomaceous earth.
My chickens love them. We hunt them and grow them. If I leave a can out overnight with a little catfood in it they will fill the can with a mornig chicken snack.
Wait! What exactly?
@@carolb5677 a catfood can with catfood juice left where the bugs live they will crawl in and they can't get out. The chickens will eat them from the can. You could use the method to get rid of them as well.
@@jandcschwartz thanks, trying it tonight!
I love this idea! We have chickens too. But we haven’t let them out because they eventually start devouring our garden 😅😅
I’ve heard they can’t eat tomato and pepper leaves and they immediately go for those.
@@aiisshhaaa Yes, they definitely require supervision in the garden Lol. They are great for getting the garden ready and going through it when it is done growing though. I hope you catch a lot of bugs for them.
I’ve had way more roly polies this year as opposed to earwigs. For earwig infestations in past years I would go out at night with a headlamp & manually pick them off of my plants & squish them. A few rounds of that every night for a few nights or so took care of the problem!
I started to get a ton of Earwigs last year and they loved all my lettuce, I have a bad feeling based off the last two years I will never get rid of them, they have even made it into my house and I feel like I battle them daily.
My Greenstalk is an earwig hotel. Don't know how to dry it out without killing my plants. They love the cardboard mulch in my garden too. Slugs have been a problem in previous years but now I have earwigs and snails. Don't know where the snails came from but they like the damp too.
I had a small Earwig problem and a huge Pill Bug problem this year. I know Pill Bugs are supposed to be good guys but there was a total infestation that was like a horror movie. They were chewing on every small plant at the base and they ate/ruined hundreds of strawberries. I could not direct sow anything, they would destroy it immediately. I hate using products to take care of this kind of stuff but I had to resort to using Sluggo Plus. It saved me! If anyone is interested make sure you buy the PLUS version. It also handles Earwigs and it's certified organic. hard to find in a store, had to order online.
Birds do be beneficial. 😂 A free way to remove all pests is lay your dirt in a thin layer on a tarp, water it a bit and keep it moist throughout the day, after 24 hours the birds will eat everything that comes crawling up. Do this enough and Birds will start flocking to your area to help out.
Earwigs have been crazy this year. They were even getting in my house. It was because I left the mulch on over the winter and had a mild winter like Luke said. I got rid of all the mulch and put some Sluggo Plus and they're gone. It's been raining so much, I don't feel I really need mulch. I'd rather water more than have to deal with earwigs.
Not only am dealing with a surplus of earwigs this year but I am also dealing with a new to me pest the lilly beetle. My garden has been assaulted by bugs this year.
Thank you, Luke. 😊
Great video. I've had earwigs like crazy this year... worse outside of the garden though. But in the garden, we had them near the tops of the corn (~2-3' at the time) and dusted with DE in that case.
How do you mulch your garden soil in the winter with out creating more problems with earwigs?
Thank you for tips! Now I understand why they love my lettuce so much!
Luke your the best man those things just about destroyed my broccoli.I know what to do now.(I didn't even know what they were)
I started sprinkling Sluggo Plus this year. I hardly see earwigs or pill bugs. They wiped many seedlings last year.
I live MI, too. Earwigs have been all over the place this year, not just the garden.
Same! In and outside our home. Our neighbor has a massive tree that blows ALL the leaves into our yard and blankets our entire yard.
Great suggestions! THank you
I even have earwigs in my teapot, in the house, they are bad here this year. North panhandle WV. Thanks for posting.
They love my mailbox, too. Mailman said to put mothballs in there, but I hate that smell. Plus it’s a rather dangerous substance.
They are EVERYWHERE.
Yep, I've found them in the kitchen, bathroom, even just scampering across the hardwood floor. They seem to be lessening in the past week or so. Here's hoping they're winding down! Sheesh!
@@nagasraka7290 , I’ve even had one in the hollow handle of my Bic razor. Went to reach for my razor in the shower, and…what is that dark thing inside the handle?!? Gack!!
@@Jen-CelticWarrior 😲😖
I took late night photos of my garden flowers throughout this summer. FYI, there were ALWAYS earwigs ~36” off the ground happily munching the yellow centers (or disk florets) of my Shasta daisies.
Earwigs have been huge on the upper part of my property, but down in the lower part, where the garden is in the middle of a fallow field, not so much, thank goodness. I do have some cucurbits and some tomatoes sprawling in one area, so they are on the ground, but aside from there, I keep everything trimmed off the ground. But I do plant marigolds everywhere too, so that helps. As I was telling my husband just today was that I typically practice chop and drop, but I may delay that this year, just in case earwigs find their way down and we have another mild winter. Because of recent mild winters I also got potato bugs for the very first time. That was an ordeal.
Earwigs have been a problem. But in our garden the Pillbugs are horrible this year. They took out sever sprouting beans in June and early July. I know our rotting wood raised beds are a big contributing factor.
Same here Pill Bugs were destroying everything that was remotely small enough for them to eat and they ruined hundreds of strawberries. For the 1st time ever I had to use a product on them. Sluggo PLUS from Monterey. It's safe and organic and it has been a miracle for me. It also takes care of Earwigs.
@@joeysixtysix I Sluggo'd too this year. lol
Same. I use sluggo also.
Same here! I used the nuclear option and put down sevin powder in the flower beds. That did the trick early on. May have to do it again before summer is over. They ate EVERYTHING...especially marigolds!
Thsnk you! I love your channel. You always cover some things that other gardencasters do not. I'm in the Kansas City area. I haven't seen earwigs yet, but I'm going to clear out all the dead foliage anyway as a precautionary practice.
Thank you!
I’ve also had slugs like crazy as well. They’ve been loving my barley straw mulch
Salad is not so appetizing when they crawling all over it. 🤢
Earwigs pinch hurts. Also, that sounds weird because Iowa where I was at anyway did they have any earwigs until about two years ago. And I remember seeing them when I visited the Teton mountains, which I think it’s colder in the winter than here.
Yes, I was pinched too and it hurt
there were earwigs when i was a child in iowa abs God has given me 39 Birthdays. It just depends where you are at
Picked up a branch to burn and it pinched on. Ouch!
We have had ridiculous level of earwigs for a few years now. In the house, falling off door jams and in every pot I have. I use grass clippings as mulch in the garden. I still get lots of them, but they eat the clippings instead of my plants. I do have to shake them out of the lettuce and cabbage though. They also love the growing tips of my sunchokes and sunflowers.
So MANY earwigs this year. They are even in our houses in my area. I've been pinched twice in my house and boy does it hurt.
Oh thank you so much for this information we have had a lot of infestation of earwigs this year.
Alabama here. I had to stop using mulch in my containers because it “invited” them, and gave them a place to hide during the day.
Still get the occasional, but not too much damage.
This is so frustrating! I do cover my raised beds in the Fall with shredded leaves to protect and feed my soil over the winter - if this is causing the earwigs to make my garden their home, what am I supposed to do as a bed covering this year? Truly, my soil stayed beautifully moist and rich in worms but also loaded with pill bugs, slugs and earwigs.
I have the same problem hope you get a answer
Grasses are cheap, and easy to remove.
Like grass hay ? What about grass seeds the next year? @@athannaelanderson3806
You are better off turning the leaves in. That way they don't blow away and break down in the soil. Bonus, not much hiding place for bugs.
Thank you! These have taken over my yard since I broke my foot and ankle last year and haven’t been able to keep the yard clean.
I read and tried a combination of soy sauce and olive oil in a tiny container partially buried in the soil with a lid on it with holes popped into it at the base of my corn and that seemed to work.
I put out "slug traps" made by putting tuna cans near the raised beds. I baited them with very dilute sourdough starter (yeast). I did get slugs, but 10-20 times as many earwigs, then the flies also drowned in it! Still an infestation, but now the seedlings are surviving.
I find earwigs on my flowers and cucumber vines at night. The adults eat the cucumber flowers, the nymphs, the leaves. I knock them into cup of soapy water, but I also sprayed a solution of neem oil with peppermint soap probably 5 separate times and trust me, I give them an "earful" while I attack them. 😂I noticed that they housed in my fencepost caps so I killed those and treated the caps. I then switched over to to DE a couple times. Although there are a lot less, earwigs are still found every night in the cucumber flowers at the top of my trelis, so i am going to put a ring of vaseline around the stems, as I read that helps. SW Michigan. Oh, and I removed what mulch there was from last year when I planted because, earwigs.
I have new Greenstalks and earwigs have turned them into condos.
Same
Yup...there goes the theory that they stick to low ends of plants😂. I can't even use mine this year 😂
Dang that's an expensive thing to have infested with those. Hope you can get them destroyed.
Me too
Just got one this year this news makes me sad
used Tuna can with a little bit of cooking oil.. they carnt help but go in and drown in the oil. They also hate cinnamon....
Camping & sleeping on the ground, I actually had an earwig crawl into my ear. It really hurt.
It came out by shining a flashlight into my ear and it went toward the light. My mom said they occasionally had them in their dog ears.
I have earwigs the worst in my beats. Which makes sense they like the cool damp under the leaves. I heard this method somewhere so I thought I’d try it. I got some very small cake/muffin tins and filled them with beer. Placed them around and slightly into my beet patch. The next day I checked and found pan fulls of dead earwigs. Gross, I know, but it seemed to help cut them back.
🤔 ahhhh! I keep my compost pile near one of my garden beds. It is filled mainly shredded leaves, clippings and manure. I noticed earwigs in that garden this year.
Great video! I’ve been wondering what exactly they are attracted to. Cool, damp, dark 👍
I've had more earwigs this year for sure. Not just in the garden, but they clogged up my hummingbird feeders until I smeared the stands and hangers with cooking oil. When the sun heats up the stands, the oil turns tacky. This prevents earwigs AND ants.
this makes sense these little jerks where eating my seedlings it took for ever to get some of my crops going this year
They seem to be in my compost pile. How do I keep them out of the garden if they are under the leaves of the pile?
I have dense groundcover & perennial beds and flower pots... and tons of earwigs. No way to remove leaves or have bare soil. Ugh...
Ive been battling with earwigs since last year. This year I used sluggo with iron phosphate. They havent disapeared but they are not eating my plants like they used to. Between the earwigs and the cucumber beetles my plant leaves looked like doillies. I cant get Sluggo plus in Canada but If you are in the U.S. you can buy it it will reduce the population.
Do you have any advice for getting rid of spotted lantern flies? My grape vines are infested.
Can you please dive into the spice myth for pest control? (Cayenne pepper & cinnamon etc)
A gardening channel this year recommended planting radishes with potatoes so I did. Last year earwigs desiminated my potatoes. None this year I planted radishes with taters.
Luke. How do you get away with out mulching? And if you mulch is that inviting those ear wigs? I’m confused.
I've had earwigs chewing my beautiful daisies. This is a thick grouping of 4 foot high daisies. I can clear the ground a bit when I cut them back for winter but they are just going to stay thick otherwise. I'm confused though. Another video was telling us to put mulch down to prevent hydrophobic soil....which I did and welcomed in a bunch of hungry pill bugs 😕 so I removed it. Apparently it could have welcomed the ear wigs but fortunately didn't.
You can use an empty tuna can half full of water a couple drops of soy sauce and a couple drops of cooking oil. Put near earwig infestation, it will be full in a few days.
I found they love breeding under my grow bags.
What are the blight resistant tomatoes Huw Richards talks about and would they grow here in the midwest?
They’ve come into my house now because the infestation is so bad! I unfortunately had to use an spray around the outside of our house because we have crawling babies and the DE isn’t helping.
This year we are going to just buy a netting cover.
We used a copper mesh around the base of our plants and it’s stopped them from feeding.
Was wondering why no mention of diatomaceous earth ?
Love the videos
I've tried it before, it's never worked for me. I have a short video of it. If you look close, DE is all over the ground
In order for DE to be of any use it needs to be dry, and you have to almost sprinkle it directly on them.
The ones in Central California can fly and will bite. They are not harmless here!
Some tips: use insecticidal soap. Let wild milkweed grow, they curl up in the leaves and can easily be killed. Dig in moist areas or around pernenials, you should find large quantities like nests. Use a torch to kill large quantities quickly, they can't outrun the torch 😅 Coffee with milk left in the garden for a few days to a week will attract and drown them. I don't know why this works, but I left my coffee outside once and figured it out. It did much better than the other traps. Leave a pile of litter to attract them, fill it with diamacious earth.
Nuthatch are healthy this year.
Why? In Germany, we hang pots filled with straw to attract them. No idea why but I always assumed they were nice.
Because they are a beneficial insect in that they eat aphids, other garden pests and their eggs. They also eat winter moth caterpillars (Frostspanner) and their eggs.
Thank you for this info = I've been infested with ear wigs for several years & September October are worse cuz they become super active
Every summer I research how to get rid of ear wigs & all the information keeps saying there good for the garden
I don't like finding them inside most of my food when I cut stuff up to eat my Suppose to be a fresh harvest from my own yard
Let none survive is my motto. With reusable oil traps by the dozens.
I grow in containers. Can I add diatomaceous earth in my containers in the fall. I found some in my garden for the first time this year.
They’re in my corn! 😭 How do I get them out? Does soapy baking soda water help?
Keeping foliage off the ground is number one, however I find that cucumber foliage on the ground does not attract earwigs. Why is that ?
Thanks for this informative video.
I see you have cucumber beetles too. A lot of them this year
Just a heads up. Those pinchers on the back end definitely do pinch if they feel threatened. I’ve had one in my sweatshirt sleeve when I put it on 100% that thing pinched me! And it hurt
They have been horrible here in IN. I have neem oiled and leaf litter is at the very bottom of my raised garden beds. They are now coming out of my son’s toys that were left out over winter.
this is all great info, but does anyone know what product i can use to get them to go elsewhere and away from the garden? i already do all these tips, i even grew plants exclusively in containers using new soil - that did not work.
Are they attracted to mulch from leaves?
Now I'm really confused on our earwigs. My neighbor has hollyhocks. I mow for them and will pick a flower at eye level and always find at least one every time in the pedals. They also love my lettuce but not my tomatoes, but that might be because I trim my tomatoes and sow my lettuce thick
Ear wings totally fucked me up this year in central Florida. I cover everything in diatomaceous earth and that seems to have saved me a couple of cucumbers and cantaloupes, but I'll have to resolve this for next year if I want a real harvest.
I only found one HOWEVER, I've been fighting potato bugs all season!! I've used everything and pick them off daily. What else can I do?
Low to the ground? I've had them all through the heads of sunflowers last spring.
All of my apricots had earwigs, how did they get so high up?
Luckily I haven't had problems with these in my garden, but I do see one now and then in my house. I am having lots of ladybeetles in my garden though eating my cucumber and melon leaves. I have been picking them off and plain them in a jar with alcohol in it and that reduces the population but I am still going to need to get insect netting and some sort of insecticide next month when I have the money. Rain and humidity has really slowed down fruiting.
I've watched video's where people chop and drop and they use old leaves as a mulch is that bad to do?
Slugs seem to be getting my hostas, too.
I never even knew they're a problem
My brothers told me that myth. Scarred me for decades. I now just dislike them but they’re too abundant in my garden so I’m glad you released this video.
Soy sauce and vegetable oil has worked great to control their numbers.
I'm a lazy gardener and do see earwigs especially at the base of my chard. I live in So. Calif. so damp ground is only a dream wish, I have to water mid day just to cool off plants otherwise I guess I would have to use shade cloth. Thankfully with all the sun and heat the fruit is so prolific loosing a few tomatoes isn't an issue.