Land Lobsters In Your Garden?
As you spend more and more time in your garden, you see more and more interesting things. Bugs you never knew of before make an appearance. One bug we have all seen is the sow bug or roly poly. We have all played with them as children, my chickens think they are a delicacy, and they are ubiquitous in gardens in our area. They are also common elsewhere. So much so, they have a score of other common names: pill bug, potato bug, armadillo, sow bug, roly poly, roll-up bug, and wood louse. In the UK there are some very colorful and fun names for them: cheesy bobs, chiggy pig, doodle bug, cheese logs, butchy boys, granny greys, and grammersows. They are far more common in the United Kingdom.
Sow bugs aren't really bugs at all, nor are they insects. They are isopods. Their closest relatives are crustaceans and not any insect or bug in your garden. Like other crustaceans they need moisture to survive. They even breathe through a gill like structure. They have no ability to retain moisture in their body at all. If removed from a moist environment, they will die in a day or two. In your garden, you will find them in moist areas; usually hidden in mulch or decaying plant materials.
It is apropos of them to be among the detritus of the garden, as it is also their food source. Wood lice eat decaying plant material and perform a service to our gardens by breaking down organic material and converting it into a form usable by our soil and plants.
Sow bugs can reproduce asexually, one of the reasons they seem to reproduce in such a bounteous manner. Females carry around fertilized eggs in a marsupium, then appear to give birth to live young. The offspring are white colored when born, and will molt their exoskeletons as they grow, in the same manner as other crustaceans.
All in all, it sounds like there is only an up side to having roly poly's in your garden, right? Well, not entirely.
Sow bugs can be a huge problem if you try to grow strawberries. It seems as soon as a berry has reached its apex of ripe and fragrant sweetness, the darn things tunnel in and begin snacking on my precious berries. This makes me a most unhappy farmer! I like to garden as organically as possible so I cut away the holes; doesn't bother me. The grand kids refuse any strawberry that has been nibbled upon by a bug. Hey, I'll even eat the bugs and insects themselves.
While for the most part, the roly poly's will just eat decaying organic matter, there is another aggravating and destructive issue with them. They love to eat just emerged seedlings in your veggie or flower patch. I recently had a very successful germination of Cantare bush beans that were doing so well, and they were very expensive seeds from Baker Creek Seeds. Well, I went out the next morning and they and my carrot seedlings were mowed down by the sow bugs, darn them! What to do?
An old trick I learned from English gardeners: put out cut up sections of angelica throughout the garden. During the day, shake the hollow stems over a rubbish bin, and the "cheesy bobs and chiggy pigs" are disposed of. Fresh out of angelica stems? I use foot long lengths of PVC pipe with one end taped off with duct tape. It does the trick. Not so much in that charming English way, but with a SoCal pragmatism.
Another nod to the pragmatic approach: start your seed in flats in a safe place away from roly poly risk. Peas, beans, and squashes will do much better if you direct sow them. I am fully aware of this, but occasionally the pragmatic wins the day over failure. Between rats, ground squirrels, and sow bugs mowing down my young seedlings, I will have nothing left. Better to transplant than have nothing.
As a last resort, Sluggo makes a product called Sluggo Plus that will work against the sow bugs and is OMRI certified.
I referred to Sow bugs as land lobsters. They are closely related to crayfish. I will eat lobster and crayfish any day of the week. Any day. So, any takers for a nibble of sow bug? A bit of "land lobster" with drawn butter? After all, my chickens are absolutely crazy for roly's.
I will basically eat anything. At least once. I had an employee on a landscape job site dare me to eat a 6-7 " long, really fat night crawler for $40.00...and that was in the late 80's. I told him, "I'll do it for $20.00." Well, I did, and he payed up. So...I wondered. How would these taste? Well, Tommy Gomes won't be stocking these at Catalina Offshore Products any time soon, They taste somewhat of urine. There is a subtle sweetness, but in a nauseating way. I don't think I'll wrestle the chickens for them any time soon.
Sow bugs aren't really bugs at all, nor are they insects. They are isopods. Their closest relatives are crustaceans and not any insect or bug in your garden. Like other crustaceans they need moisture to survive. They even breathe through a gill like structure. They have no ability to retain moisture in their body at all. If removed from a moist environment, they will die in a day or two. In your garden, you will find them in moist areas; usually hidden in mulch or decaying plant materials.
It is apropos of them to be among the detritus of the garden, as it is also their food source. Wood lice eat decaying plant material and perform a service to our gardens by breaking down organic material and converting it into a form usable by our soil and plants.
Sow bugs can reproduce asexually, one of the reasons they seem to reproduce in such a bounteous manner. Females carry around fertilized eggs in a marsupium, then appear to give birth to live young. The offspring are white colored when born, and will molt their exoskeletons as they grow, in the same manner as other crustaceans.
All in all, it sounds like there is only an up side to having roly poly's in your garden, right? Well, not entirely.
Sow bugs can be a huge problem if you try to grow strawberries. It seems as soon as a berry has reached its apex of ripe and fragrant sweetness, the darn things tunnel in and begin snacking on my precious berries. This makes me a most unhappy farmer! I like to garden as organically as possible so I cut away the holes; doesn't bother me. The grand kids refuse any strawberry that has been nibbled upon by a bug. Hey, I'll even eat the bugs and insects themselves.
While for the most part, the roly poly's will just eat decaying organic matter, there is another aggravating and destructive issue with them. They love to eat just emerged seedlings in your veggie or flower patch. I recently had a very successful germination of Cantare bush beans that were doing so well, and they were very expensive seeds from Baker Creek Seeds. Well, I went out the next morning and they and my carrot seedlings were mowed down by the sow bugs, darn them! What to do?
An old trick I learned from English gardeners: put out cut up sections of angelica throughout the garden. During the day, shake the hollow stems over a rubbish bin, and the "cheesy bobs and chiggy pigs" are disposed of. Fresh out of angelica stems? I use foot long lengths of PVC pipe with one end taped off with duct tape. It does the trick. Not so much in that charming English way, but with a SoCal pragmatism.
Another nod to the pragmatic approach: start your seed in flats in a safe place away from roly poly risk. Peas, beans, and squashes will do much better if you direct sow them. I am fully aware of this, but occasionally the pragmatic wins the day over failure. Between rats, ground squirrels, and sow bugs mowing down my young seedlings, I will have nothing left. Better to transplant than have nothing.
As a last resort, Sluggo makes a product called Sluggo Plus that will work against the sow bugs and is OMRI certified.
I referred to Sow bugs as land lobsters. They are closely related to crayfish. I will eat lobster and crayfish any day of the week. Any day. So, any takers for a nibble of sow bug? A bit of "land lobster" with drawn butter? After all, my chickens are absolutely crazy for roly's.
I will basically eat anything. At least once. I had an employee on a landscape job site dare me to eat a 6-7 " long, really fat night crawler for $40.00...and that was in the late 80's. I told him, "I'll do it for $20.00." Well, I did, and he payed up. So...I wondered. How would these taste? Well, Tommy Gomes won't be stocking these at Catalina Offshore Products any time soon, They taste somewhat of urine. There is a subtle sweetness, but in a nauseating way. I don't think I'll wrestle the chickens for them any time soon.
Hahaha- Great blog!
ReplyDeleteGreat article. Thanks John. The paragraph on the "old trick you learned from English gardeners" is a bit unclear. Not sure what angelica is, what to do with the pvc pipe, or what one is trying to do with them. Perhaps a picture would make it more clear to your audience.
ReplyDeleteI have been overrun with these this year, to the point of my soil seeming to be more pillbug and shells than dirt in some areas. Yuck. I put hollow orange peel halves out and empty them out in the morning of all the sleepy pillbugs inside.
ReplyDelete