Convincing people that earwigs have virtues is going to be a hard sell these days. I hear all kinds of earwig horror stories but fortunately, we’re presently earwig free. However I could tell you a few earwig stories of my own. How about earwigs in the coffee maker? And to think that less than 20 years ago our whole Island had nary an earwig! Is that right? Does anyone know when they were first spotted?

If your house and yard is crawling with earwigs ,I doubt that you’re too interested in their history, and neither do you care that they act much like birds in that they brood over their eggs in a nest and the adult female guards the young nymphs. The TLC that the young get may help to account for the way in which populations in an area can dramatically increase.

I looked at an article on this insect on the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador website. They claim that many earwigs are brought into houses and one place that I’ve seen them hitch a ride is in bouquets of flowers and vegetables such as lettuce and cabbage. They are usually active only at night, so that’s the best time to catch them. The above mentioned website suggest several possibilities in the way of traps.

Make a trap by filling a paper towel tube with straws and seal it at one end. Another possibility is to roll up a piece of newspaper or a piece of corrugated cardboard. In the garden you can bury a can so the top is level with the soil. A tuna can that still has oil in it may work for you. Once you’ve trapped them , I leave it up to you to figure out what to do with them.

If you want a quick knockdown of a large population of earwigs in a small space, you might try spraying them with soapy water. Although I’ve never had occasion to try it myself, others report that it works.

Hens are noted for their interest in earwigs and can help keep populations down but that means of control is of no use to most of us.

The Rodale Encyclopedia of Natural Insect and Disease Control tells us that earwig a are not accomplished travellers and so rely heavily on man to get them around - in bundled shrubbery, cut flowers, etc. Some of the first that I saw on our farm came in strawberry boxes that well meaning customers brought back after the boxes sat for a day or two in their yard. Despite having wings of a sort, they are not strong enough to lift them off the ground so they take off from a high point in order to come up with anything that resembles flying.

Despite the fact that earwigs are one of the most widely disliked insects out there, they do have merit in that they are important predators of smaller insects in your gardens. Does that help any?

Spruce Woes

A fellow gardener tells me that he’s having trouble with a caterpillar that has been stripping the new growth off his blue spruce. Is any one else having spruce problems? In Destructive and Useful Insects by Metcalf et al, the caterpillar stage of the spruce budworm is described as being “1 inch long, dark brown, with a yellowish stripe along each side and covered with yellowish tubercles”. Could this be the problem? This reference tells us that when a list was made in the early 1900’s of the top 20 most destructive insects in the US, that the spruce budworm ranked third.

What is the most destructive insect in the world? According to Answers.com, it’s the desert locust, an insect found in parts of Africa and the Middle East. That source claims that this member of the grasshopper family can eat it’s own weight in food a day and a large swarm during migration can consume as much as 20,000 pounds of grain and other vegetation in a day. And to think that I worry about a Colorado potato beetle!

Rag Bag

It’s a good time now to take a gander around and see if any new weeds have appeared in your yard this season. Earwigs aren’t the only things that tag along on nursery stock . I bought a load of topsoil this year and so I have been on the look out for anything new and different. So far the only thing that has shown up is a single plant of colt’s foot.

What about ragwort and ragweed? Ragwort is toxic to cattle and no effort should be spared in getting it out and keeping it out of pastures. Ragweed was once upon a time hard to find on PEI but it has now established itself in some areas. It is well-known for the distress that it causes when in bloom to people who suffer from hay fever. It’s not the only culprit, however. The ubiquitous goldenrod can also bother those with hay fever.

So is either ragwort or ragweed show up, I’d strongly recommend that you eliminate them promptly

Gardening Comments or questions? Drop me a line at RR 1 Charlottetown, PE, C1E 1Z4 or bcobb@pei.sympatico.ca