meh, sister's garden still getting eaten up

[kevinrs]

and I still haven't figured out what's doing it.

Everything in the garden is getting eaten, except some artichokes, least noticeable on the tomatoes, as they are growing faster than getting eaten. Most of the broccoli has gotten ahead of the bugs, but still getting eaten. The only bugs I've seen are earwigs and aphids. I'm planning to spray BT once the weather clears, weird unseasonable weather right now, doesn't usually rain this time of year. The tomatoes also have brown spots, not sure what they are. Looking like squash is going to be a loss, as well as cauliflower, and some of the cucumbers and eggplant. The rest, depends on if growth gets ahead of the bugs or if I can find what bugs are doing it and cut the population down.

[Heritage]

I think your first instinct of "earwigs" is correct. We had a lot of rain this season and are battling earwigs in our commercial flower operation. You can place rolled-up newspapers around the plants to capture the earwigs at night and then dump them into soapy water in the morning. A nice thing about earwigs is that they don't reproduce very fast so you should be able to get ahead of them with natural controls.

I think if it was worms you would be able to see them with careful examination. Spraying BT won't hurt, but in this case I don't think it will help your problem.

Good Luck!

[Heritage]

I'm also thinking of trying diatomaceous earth (DE food grade) around my tomatoes as earwig control but I've had no experience with it and its effectiveness. But, it's cheap and safe so I figure it's worth a try.

[Heritage]

I'm referring to the damage in the 4th photo of the squash and to your past post photos of the cauliflower (or broccoli). Not sure what the brown spots are on the tomato.

[kevinrs]

on the tomatoes the spots are on lower leaves, some plants have holes in the leaves instead of spots, seems I didn't get those pictures. the earwigs, seem to be everywhere, all around the house. I just keep finding them, even far from the garden, I need to redo the earwig trap I did before, but probably they are in huge numbers through the neighborhood, kill a few hundred, the overcrowded ones next door move in. What eats earwigs? Probably not much.

[kevinrs]

I search earwig predator, and the first hit says "Since they multiply fairly quickly, an infestation can number in the thousands"

and need toads or birds to eat them...haven't yet seen a toad there, don't know what kind of local birds would go after them, probably any toads in the neighborhood get killed by neighbors who don't know they are good. We sometimes get toads around my parents house, not sure how they survive there, as it's dryer, no regularly watered area like a lawn, but a couple years ago several kept showing up in the front planter. I made sure to keep that planter watered to help the toads out that year.

[Heritage]

A mother earwig lays less than 50 eggs and stays with, and cares for the young, for a few months. That is a slow population growth for an insect. The instinct to care for the young is kind of neat, and almost makes me want to feed them rather than kill them. Too bad they like to eat flowers, otherwise I'd ignore them.

There are several organic controls that are supposed to work - one of the wasps(can't remember the name), Boric acid (sprinkled on ground), diatomaceous earth (sprinkled on ground). Birds and lizards will also eat them.

There are also pesticides registered for use if you decide to go that route. The big box stores carry granular pesticides that will kill everything, including earwigs.

Maybe some of the PNW growers can chime in and recommend a control to us Californians who rarely see an earwig infestation.

[Heritage]

and, on the plus side, earwigs eat aphids. So, alhough all our plants may be shredded, at least we won't have aphids

[kevinrs]

well, my guess is that the whole neighborhood is infested with them, and there are hundreds or thousands just on my sister's property, everyone has lawns, though they may not be in good shape, so lots of habitat for earwigs. Any toads or lizards that would eat them probably get killed by people or dogs.
Boric acid though, I need to find where we left that and put it into a couple spots away from the garden just to cut down the population. If the weather cooperates I'll spray some BT just in case there are some caterpillars doing it and somehow hiding during the day.

[kevinrs]

I have found more than earwigs in a container of vegetable oil I put out to trap the earwigs. The earwigs in the photo are large ones, the white things look to me like maggots, but I'm not sure what the maggots would be doing there. It was placed about 15 feet from the compost pile, but I don't see how possible maggots in the pile would get to the oil, or why they would, over stretches of dry ground.
If they are some kind of caterpillar, I'll have to make a point to go tomorrow and spray BT, as I've lost lots of plants to something, possibly these. Between plants just gone, and plants struggling to grow as fast as the leaves get eaten, I'm probably down 1/3 not counting tomatoes.