Hello!
My wife and I just put in a ton of hardwork getting our gardens renewed, only to find something has immediately started to eat the seedlings we planted.
Can anyone help us identify this plant eater? Looks like a tiny isopod/pillbug to me.
We live in southern Ontario, Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse
aka, you’ve got crabs
And I’ve got a new word
roll up into a roughly spherical shape (conglobate)
Today I learned! Cool! Use it in a sentence this week.
I dig holes around my plants and sink plastic cups into the holes, leaving the rims at ground level. Woodlice fall into the cups, and then I can give them to my chickens. It doesn’t catch them all, but it seems to give my plants a fighting chance.
My chickens won’t touch them , but will greedily eat all other garden dwellers, caterpillars, grubs, etc. 1/10, defective hens, should I turn them into tendies?
Here’s a close up ( if there’s a better community to ask, please let me know!)
Isopods are many species of crustacean. The terrestrial species are often called rolley pollies or potato bugs.
Throw some diatomaceous earth on your plants and it’ll kill the roly polys on your plants.
DE will also kill ants, spiders, ladybugs, worms, and other bugs that may be beneficial to your plants. I use it very sparingly.
That’s a Rollie Pollie Ollie! Dunno what anyone else calls it though. My mom used to put Diatomaceous Power at the base of the plant to keep them safe from these guys, squash bugs, and other hungry little pests
I’ve heard them called that before! I’ll be purchasing some Diatomaceous earth today.
Definitely a pillbug/isopod of some sort. Usually, they eat dead plants, at least in my experience. Is it for sure eating, or is it just crawling on there? The way a whole chunk of the leaf is missing is similar to the damage you see from slugs.
We thought it was slugs at first but made some beers traps and got nothing.
Came out at night and I watched this guy chomp down for ~3 mins before I scooped him up and sent him on his way.
I’ll be purchasing some Diatomaceous earth today.
@Jtee @evasive_chimpanzee organic Sluggo Plus works well on pill bugs too. I use it to protect my beans when the emerge. Rain really dissipates the diatomaceous earth.
He friend shaped
