Rollie Pollie's/Pill Bugs

[brianccarr]

I have read that these bugs are harmless but I am witnessing these things eat the lower leaves of my Cauliflower and Cabbage. I can see them on the leaves just eating away. Does anybody know how to get rid of these things? I have raised beds and my best guess is they came over with the compost.

[b54red]

They are basically eating the dying leaves next to the ground. If you grow potatoes they will do the same thing to the lower dying leaves on the potato plants. I have seen what seems to be millions of them without them really hurting production or damaging the main cabbage head. What you really have to worry about down here are slugs which can crawl deeply into a cabbage plant and ruin parts of it. Nothing like cutting open a nice pretty head of cabbage only to find slugs inside. Yuck.

[Worth1]

Got millions of them in my yard eating away at all of the dead stuff.
No worries here.

Worth

[goodwin]

Yeah, they are arthropods, a very old land species of crustaceans and decomposers, not pests.
I appreciate the help cleaning up the garden and they leave a lot of rich castings.

Lee

[socalgardengal]

If you really want them gone, sprinkle cornmeal everywhere and they will eat it and die. It expands inside them when they drink water. Cruel but it works

[matilda'skid]

They can be pests. http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDE...S/sowbugs.html

[Worth1]

If the world becomes over populated we can make ourselves smaller.
Instead of crawfish boils we can have pill bug boils and hunt grasshoppers for big game.
No more swimming holes though due to man eating perch.

Worth

[PaigeJ]

They tore my cucumber plants up last year by eating through the base of the plants. Then they ate all the new seedlings I put out as replacements. That was the 2nd year in a row they did that to my cukes and now that I've witnessed them doing it and what the damage looks like you can bet they won't do it again this year. I bought the pillbug version of sluggo but by the time I killed them it was too late for my plants.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[ssi912]

they will eat the cucumber rinds, grow off the ground. good sign of multiple layers of decomposition in your garden. I believe rollie pollie prefer new compost. good thing, no action needed. add more organics.

[brianccarr]

These bugs are definitely eating healthy lower green leaves. I have a pictures on my ipad but I give up trying to post them here; I've tried and tried. Thanks for all the replies. The link that "matilda'skid" posted mentions that they will eat healthy leaves. Maybe they won't eat enough to actually hurt the plant? I'm not sure whether to try and control these things are not.

[shelleybean]

I have not had a problem with them but my friend/neighbor swears they ate all her impatien seedlings. She calls them sow bugs though. Does anyone know if that's really the same thing or a bigger bug that just looks the same?

[peebee]

I've seen with my own eyes pillbugs covering my cucumber seedlings and destroying them, as the seedlings are leafless or gone soon after. No other bugs bothered the cukes as I kept checking daily at different times of the day. For some reason they only ate the cukes, not the tomato, pepper, eggplant or bean seedlings. So what I do now is place a 2 to 3 inch section of pvc pipe around the seedling until it gets large enough to where the pillbugs are not interested anymore, then I gently remove the pipe section. I tried sections of paper towel or toilet paper tubing but they are too lightweight. Plus the pvc can be used year after year.

Pillbugs will eat tender plants and cause a lot of damage- Sluggo Plus will kill them but it isn't easy.

[matilda'skid]

google OK forum pill bugs and read what okiedawn says

[clkeiper]

You can try diatomecious earth, but I went for the big guns and used sevin or eight (I can't remember which, now) because they ate ALL of my newly planted pink tomatoes off last year and two of my dwarf project tomatoes and a couple peppers. DANG things! They will eat whatever is available.