Sow Bugs and Pill Bugs
Pill bugs and I co-exist in the garden. I appreciate all the work they do in finishing my compost, making it ready to be used in the garden. When it’s time to sift the compost there are hundreds of them munching away doing their job. And hundreds continue the task in the trash can where I store my sifted compost.
By the time I’m ready to add the compost to the garden I don’t want to be moving hoards of them where there will be seedlings and transplants to munch on. So a few days before I add the compost to the garden I give the pill bugs a final feast.
Here are two lids left in the trash can of compost. The thought is that the pill bugs eat the cornmeal which expands in their digestive tract and they become organic material. After several days, a few pill bugs will remain and new ones probably hatch but the population is dramatically reduced.
And so my pansies, lettuce and seedlings do not become a pill bug feast.
I have used cornmeal in the garden but you have to rig the arrangement with a cover so that dew and rain don’t render the cornmeal ineffective.
Sluggo Plus is an organic control that is very effective with sow and pill bugs. It also kills slugs, snails, earwigs and cutworms. Scatter pellets around vegetables or fruit to protect seedlings and other vulnerable plants. I use it with transplants and around strawberries.
Sluggo Plus contains Spinosad, derived from a naturally-occurring soil dwelling bacterium and iron phosphate which occurs naturally in soil and breaks down into fertilizer in the soil over time. Sluggo Plus is OMRI listed for organic gardening and is safe for pets and wildlife.