If your garden is being invaded by earwigs—those creepy-looking insects with sharp pincers on their hindquarters—get rid of them by making your own eco-friendly traps. Tightly roll up a wet newspaper and tie a rubber band around it to keep it from unraveling. Place it in the area where you saw the earwigs and leave overnight. In the morning there will only be standing room for the bugs. Put the newspaper in a plastic bag, tie a knot at the top and throw it in the trash. Repeat this until your traps are free of earwigs.
Another way to catch earwigs is to cut a leaking garden hose into 12 inch lengths and make sure the inside is completely dry. Place the pieces where you’ve seen earwigs crawling around and leave them overnight. By morning, the traps should be filled with earwigs and ready for disposal.
Turn a potato into an earwig trap by boiling it, cutting in half and scooping out the center to form two small bowls. Place them between your plants and the earwigs will crawl in to feed. Quickly collect them and throw them in a bucket of soapy water.
what is a pit Larvae of the Japanese beetle, June beetle, rose chafer, and other beetles are fleshy, off-white, worm-like creatures about 1 inch (2.5 cm) long, with six legs and brown heads. When disturbed, they spin in circles together. Engraved grubs live in the ground and feed on grass and weed roots. Some species feed for one to three years before becoming adults.
Catch potato-eating wireworms, the larvae of click beetles, by digging small holes in the soil in several places. Add potato pieces and cover with boards – the nests will attract swarms of wireworms. Every few days, collect the pickled potatoes and toss them in a bucket of soapy water.
Wireworms like moist soil, so you can deter them by improving drainage with organic matter or sand. Or plant mustard, buckwheat or alfalfa in late summer and turn them under in spring. These green manures repel the pests and condition the soil.
Country gardeners may have a pest controller: the chicken. Turn the soil over and chickens will be eager to scavenge for cutworms, wireworms and maggots.
To crush vine borers, find the worm’s entry hole in the vine and insert a piece of wire to kill it, or slit open the stem and remove the pest. After that, you can bury the wounded stem section of the buttercup squash and it will often develop new roots. Butternut squash is resistant to pumpkin vine borer.
Tie up fruit tree trunks with corrugated cardboard to trap codling moth larvae as they pull down the trees to spin cocoons. Check for pests weekly and destroy them.
Japanese beetles eat almost every part of more than 300 plants. They especially love the rosaceae (roses, raspberries, and apples), hibiscus (hollyhocks and hibiscus), sweetcorn, and grapes.
Check the corn daily as soon as the silk appears as the beetles feast on the delicate silk. Without the silk, pollination cannot take place and no spikes will develop.
Cultivate the soil deeply in spring and fall to kill maggots and expose them to birds.
