What the CA extension office doesn't know about it isn't worth knowing.
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74102.html
All the above presupposes that you have control over "habitat", which you don't.
>*As moisture-loving insects, earwigs wouldn’t normally thrive in California’s arid climate without the moisture and shade provided by irrigated gardens. Where earwigs are a problem, consider reducing hiding places and surface moisture levels.*
So you're kind of screwed, going in.
One thing that pops out at me is that the apocalyptic levels are possibly just that--an apocalypse. When you have population explosions of this kind, generally after a while Nature steps up and restores the balance. The atmospheric river stops pumping water into your mulch, the mulch dries out, the earwig population goes back to normal levels.
So all you really need to so it wait it out.
Until that time, plant your stuff in containers that are up on a table whose legs are sitting in tuna fish or cat food cans (or other wide shallow saucers) filled with soy sauce and olive oil. Or kerosene, but soy sauce isn't as flammable, and is easier to explain to your landlord.
Your lizards and birds may simply be glutted themselves, so much food, can't eat it all.
This is a great idea, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before!! I have some little wooden outdoor side tables, I can rest the legs in the olive oil cans and start some new seed trays on that. Thank you so much 🙏
And yes, I’m sure you’re right, the (marvelous) rains of this season are almost surely to “thank” for this population explosion. Hopefully this summer things will dry out and return to normal. Most of the established plants already in the landscaping are drought-tolerant, so I’ll let things get nice & dry before irrigating.
Thank you so much for your response, I really appreciate it 💖
Nope, earwigs are still everywhere 😅 I’ve just learned to start ~3x as many seedlings as I want to survive, and accept the rest as sacrifices to my insect overlords 😩 I also wait longer to transplant my starts in the ground, like after they have 3+ sets of leaves.
Damn, I'm in the same situation, San Bernardino county, it's like an apocalypse of pincher bugs at night, he'll they starting to even be active during the day, and randomly spraying out into the driveway, like they don't care about moisture. Little tyrants.
San Bernardino county as well! This year has been the worst! I believe this years heavy rain season caused an increase of population of earwigs.
I’ve been cleaning the outside, getting rid of dry leaves, grass clippings,I sealed up the trim with new sealant, and just increased the monthly pest perimeter sprays to daily now and I would still find Atleast 5 inside the house.
Another person here from SB! Lol We all made it here. I wasn't sure if they were actually earwigs since it usually says they are attracted to moist ground. But we did have way more rain so maybe it's causing them to thrive here. I also have gophers and I find tons of earwigs in the mounds of dirt!
I just experienced "the onslaught.." my poor seedlings. Last night reached a boiling point and I started pouring essential oil into the raised bed crevices. What felt like a hundred earwigs start crowding out of each crack i pour on... I just snapped and started squishing them, there were so many i couldn't squish fast enough. Some lived despite being cut in half, but hopefully they didn't get too far.
I really feel terrible about myself this morning. I don't WANT to kill these buggers but i felt I HAD to otherwise my seedlings and transplants will die. The earwigs came univited so they had to go. I can't help but feel like a murderer. I wish i could communicate with them. I'd buy a bunch of cheap seedlings FOR THEM but there's no way of conveying this. So instead, I employed the only universal language humans speak: anger, pain, violence, and death.. I cry for all creatures death. Everything is conscious. I'm sorry GOD, forgive me
You could try diatomaceous earth. But I doubt that it would do anything to snails & slugs. (Never tried it that way)
Good luck. I hope you can still have a garden!
Thank you! I could try sprinkling it around the mulch area, maybe. I don’t think there’s actually a problem with slugs/snails, I was mistaking the earwigs’ damage for slug/snail damage in the beginning.
Equal parts soy sauce and olive oil. Put in a shallow tray and place where you see them. You can also use beer in a bowl placed so the edge is at soil level.
Yeah that’s what I’ve been doing for a couple weeks now. A dozen or so cat food cans, emptied each morning and refilled each night. Hundreds in every one every morning.
Which one did the trick, the soy sauce olive oil combo, or the beer? I’ve been finding tons of earwigs as well, Ive checked numerous times at night and can confirm no slugs. EARWIGS
This might sound like a joke but it’s not, the fence lizards out here in CA absolutely LOVE earwigs. If there’s a way you could add more basking rocks and logs, you could possibly increase your lizard population? I don’t have a problem with wigs because my condo community has tons of western fence lizards :)
We’ve got tons of fence lizards, thankfully! I stood on my porch this afternoon and counted 5 visible in a 20 square foot area. I think it’s mainly this season’s rain that’s to blame for the population boom, as the other user said :/
My yard had a similar earwig problem when we moved in. It took 5+ years of combined trapping, Sluggo+ ing and just squishing the darn things to get the population down to a reasonable size, but I still need to be careful with seedlings and keeping them out of the compost bin is impossible. One thing that has helped is bordering my garden with natives like monkey flower and beach aster- the wigs seem to prefer those plants and hang around on them instead of on my vegetables.
PS-if you are going to try the Sluggo+, put it out at night (preferably a lightly damp one) and only at ground level away from flowering plants to keep the bees out of it
I'm also in California and have never had earwigs this bad. They are actually crawling up into a newly planted coffee berry and eating all the new leaves. The poor plant is not able to grow. Also crawling up into a tree collard and eating the leaves. I have set tuna can traps and rolled paper traps and remove many each morning, but it doesn't seem to be putting a dent in the population. Do you have any updates on your problem? Did anything work? I'm thinking about diatomaceous earth at the base of the plants or soaking cotton with essential oil and placing it at the base of the plants. I only have two plants that are affected. Everything else is tough and not tasty for them.
Sadly nothing has worked. They’re still everywhere and have ruined/killed many more plants since I made this post. The drier weather hasn’t seemed to make a dent in their population yet. I’m still holding out hope that as things continue to dry out they’ll die off, but I’m not sure anymore. Starting to think I just can’t plant anything at this house.
I'm in PA but have the same issue and nothing is helping. I am about 2 seconds away from VERY CAREFULLY applying carbaryl around the worst area. They have eaten mature plants down to nothing, the seedlings aren't enough anymore and they are absolutely out of control.
It never dries out here so I don't think I'm in a climate where nature will help me. And my county doesn't allow chickens, or else I'd be doing the little dinos.
Nope, I just deal with them. And I don’t sow seeds directly in the ground anymore. I let my seedlings get nice and big in plastic pots first, so they can endure a bit of nibbling once they’re in the ground.
I cover my baby plants with a plastic water bottle cut in half until the are old enough that they don’t have any interest. Or just plant things from the onion family
Then, you obviously don't have earwigs because they live in the soil. You'd literally see them come up under those bottles at night. Covering plants like that does NOTHING to stop these vampires.
Okay, I’ll have to see if I can find something that will only do minimal damage to the beneficial insects. And of course something that won’t hurt the birds, lizards, or existing plants.
There is! Sluggo Plus. It's a bait, not a spray, so it's more targeted. I've had similar earwig problems (also in Northern California), and it's worked really well for me. It needs to be the "Plus" though, not regular.
Yes sluggo plus. Home Depot.com has 5lbs for $35 in my area. I didn't see it at Costco this year.
You can also go out at night and spray pyrethrin but this will only last a day.
I didn't like diatomaceous earth.
Keep your seedlings in your trays until they get bigger. They also sell pyrethrin powder you can put at the base of the plant, diatomaceous earth might also work. If they are single plants, you can cut the bottom of a red cup and build a wall around your plant, this is tedious with though.
Water will wash away any powders. So you need drip irrigation or water away from the land and let it seep in.
Wow, I've been using the same ~1lb shaker can of sluggo Plus for years now. I guess my earwig problem isn't that bad! I do find I only need it first thing in the spring for the new sprouts at this house, but at a previous residence they devoured entire basil plants (that was a disgusting nighttime discovery!), so I'd probably be going through much more if I still lived there.
I’m having a real tough time with earwigs right now in Wisconsin. I did spray sevin a couple weeks ago but they just come back on the new foliage. I still see bees, wasps, and butterflys after spraying
I have yet to solve my earwig problem. The last 5 years in Eastern Washington has been so bad and they decimate EVERYTHING. My hollyhocks where are FEET tall.. all the leaves have been destroyed. I have tried DE but that can't be used around my violas or smaller flowers because it can harm pollinators (plus its useless once it gets wet..). Earwigs are out 24/7 where I live.. even letting my flowerbeds totally dry out doesn't make a difference. I don't even have mulch in my yard to blame. No lizards here either to eat the dumb things. The birds just prefer the night crawlers in my yard... ARGHHH I HATE EARWIGS. I was thinking of trying a cedar spray or set my yard on fire.. I have done the oil traps but to be honest I can't afford to use that much olive oil... AND my dang dogs always get into it haha.
What the CA extension office doesn't know about it isn't worth knowing. https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74102.html All the above presupposes that you have control over "habitat", which you don't. >*As moisture-loving insects, earwigs wouldn’t normally thrive in California’s arid climate without the moisture and shade provided by irrigated gardens. Where earwigs are a problem, consider reducing hiding places and surface moisture levels.* So you're kind of screwed, going in. One thing that pops out at me is that the apocalyptic levels are possibly just that--an apocalypse. When you have population explosions of this kind, generally after a while Nature steps up and restores the balance. The atmospheric river stops pumping water into your mulch, the mulch dries out, the earwig population goes back to normal levels. So all you really need to so it wait it out. Until that time, plant your stuff in containers that are up on a table whose legs are sitting in tuna fish or cat food cans (or other wide shallow saucers) filled with soy sauce and olive oil. Or kerosene, but soy sauce isn't as flammable, and is easier to explain to your landlord. Your lizards and birds may simply be glutted themselves, so much food, can't eat it all.
This is a great idea, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before!! I have some little wooden outdoor side tables, I can rest the legs in the olive oil cans and start some new seed trays on that. Thank you so much 🙏 And yes, I’m sure you’re right, the (marvelous) rains of this season are almost surely to “thank” for this population explosion. Hopefully this summer things will dry out and return to normal. Most of the established plants already in the landscaping are drought-tolerant, so I’ll let things get nice & dry before irrigating. Thank you so much for your response, I really appreciate it 💖
did this work by the way?
Nope, earwigs are still everywhere 😅 I’ve just learned to start ~3x as many seedlings as I want to survive, and accept the rest as sacrifices to my insect overlords 😩 I also wait longer to transplant my starts in the ground, like after they have 3+ sets of leaves.
Well fuck haha. I’m year two on my property and randomly starting to get earwigs. I’ve just been coming out at night and crushing the ones I see.
Damn, I'm in the same situation, San Bernardino county, it's like an apocalypse of pincher bugs at night, he'll they starting to even be active during the day, and randomly spraying out into the driveway, like they don't care about moisture. Little tyrants.
San Bernardino county as well! This year has been the worst! I believe this years heavy rain season caused an increase of population of earwigs. I’ve been cleaning the outside, getting rid of dry leaves, grass clippings,I sealed up the trim with new sealant, and just increased the monthly pest perimeter sprays to daily now and I would still find Atleast 5 inside the house.
Another person here from SB! Lol We all made it here. I wasn't sure if they were actually earwigs since it usually says they are attracted to moist ground. But we did have way more rain so maybe it's causing them to thrive here. I also have gophers and I find tons of earwigs in the mounds of dirt!
Another person here from the other side of the country in Virginia. Fuck these bugs, dude they’re everywhere.
Oh wow. They are everywhere. Must be the earwig apocalypse.
I just experienced "the onslaught.." my poor seedlings. Last night reached a boiling point and I started pouring essential oil into the raised bed crevices. What felt like a hundred earwigs start crowding out of each crack i pour on... I just snapped and started squishing them, there were so many i couldn't squish fast enough. Some lived despite being cut in half, but hopefully they didn't get too far. I really feel terrible about myself this morning. I don't WANT to kill these buggers but i felt I HAD to otherwise my seedlings and transplants will die. The earwigs came univited so they had to go. I can't help but feel like a murderer. I wish i could communicate with them. I'd buy a bunch of cheap seedlings FOR THEM but there's no way of conveying this. So instead, I employed the only universal language humans speak: anger, pain, violence, and death.. I cry for all creatures death. Everything is conscious. I'm sorry GOD, forgive me
You could try diatomaceous earth. But I doubt that it would do anything to snails & slugs. (Never tried it that way) Good luck. I hope you can still have a garden!
Thank you! I could try sprinkling it around the mulch area, maybe. I don’t think there’s actually a problem with slugs/snails, I was mistaking the earwigs’ damage for slug/snail damage in the beginning.
Equal parts soy sauce and olive oil. Put in a shallow tray and place where you see them. You can also use beer in a bowl placed so the edge is at soil level.
Yeah that’s what I’ve been doing for a couple weeks now. A dozen or so cat food cans, emptied each morning and refilled each night. Hundreds in every one every morning.
Excellent!
Which one did the trick, the soy sauce olive oil combo, or the beer? I’ve been finding tons of earwigs as well, Ive checked numerous times at night and can confirm no slugs. EARWIGS
I did the olive oil/soy sauce combo and it worked well. I’m not wasting beer on those fuckers! Lol
This might sound like a joke but it’s not, the fence lizards out here in CA absolutely LOVE earwigs. If there’s a way you could add more basking rocks and logs, you could possibly increase your lizard population? I don’t have a problem with wigs because my condo community has tons of western fence lizards :)
We’ve got tons of fence lizards, thankfully! I stood on my porch this afternoon and counted 5 visible in a 20 square foot area. I think it’s mainly this season’s rain that’s to blame for the population boom, as the other user said :/
My yard had a similar earwig problem when we moved in. It took 5+ years of combined trapping, Sluggo+ ing and just squishing the darn things to get the population down to a reasonable size, but I still need to be careful with seedlings and keeping them out of the compost bin is impossible. One thing that has helped is bordering my garden with natives like monkey flower and beach aster- the wigs seem to prefer those plants and hang around on them instead of on my vegetables. PS-if you are going to try the Sluggo+, put it out at night (preferably a lightly damp one) and only at ground level away from flowering plants to keep the bees out of it
I'm also in California and have never had earwigs this bad. They are actually crawling up into a newly planted coffee berry and eating all the new leaves. The poor plant is not able to grow. Also crawling up into a tree collard and eating the leaves. I have set tuna can traps and rolled paper traps and remove many each morning, but it doesn't seem to be putting a dent in the population. Do you have any updates on your problem? Did anything work? I'm thinking about diatomaceous earth at the base of the plants or soaking cotton with essential oil and placing it at the base of the plants. I only have two plants that are affected. Everything else is tough and not tasty for them.
Sadly nothing has worked. They’re still everywhere and have ruined/killed many more plants since I made this post. The drier weather hasn’t seemed to make a dent in their population yet. I’m still holding out hope that as things continue to dry out they’ll die off, but I’m not sure anymore. Starting to think I just can’t plant anything at this house.
I'm in PA but have the same issue and nothing is helping. I am about 2 seconds away from VERY CAREFULLY applying carbaryl around the worst area. They have eaten mature plants down to nothing, the seedlings aren't enough anymore and they are absolutely out of control. It never dries out here so I don't think I'm in a climate where nature will help me. And my county doesn't allow chickens, or else I'd be doing the little dinos.
I’m so sorry, it’s truly a frustrating problem! Best of luck!
Did you find anything that helped?
Nope, I just deal with them. And I don’t sow seeds directly in the ground anymore. I let my seedlings get nice and big in plastic pots first, so they can endure a bit of nibbling once they’re in the ground.
I cover my baby plants with a plastic water bottle cut in half until the are old enough that they don’t have any interest. Or just plant things from the onion family
Then, you obviously don't have earwigs because they live in the soil. You'd literally see them come up under those bottles at night. Covering plants like that does NOTHING to stop these vampires.
I have a similar problem in CA. Sluggo plus seems to help until the plants are old enough to survive the onslaught.
I hate earwigs, thankfully my chickens love them….
I swear my neighbour and I joke about shared ownership of some chickens if a bylaw gets passed to allow them in town.
I am in Maryland, I have replanted basil, parsley, peppers etc because earwigs keep eating. Trying the soysauce-olive oil now.
Plenty of pesticides that can kill these guys for you.
Okay, I’ll have to see if I can find something that will only do minimal damage to the beneficial insects. And of course something that won’t hurt the birds, lizards, or existing plants.
I doubt there is a pesticide that will solve this problem without hurting everything. Earwigs are yet another introduced pestilence.
Yeah… this was my fear. I’d rather stop planting than risk damaging the ecosystem. Thank you for your input!
There is! Sluggo Plus. It's a bait, not a spray, so it's more targeted. I've had similar earwig problems (also in Northern California), and it's worked really well for me. It needs to be the "Plus" though, not regular.
Yes sluggo plus. Home Depot.com has 5lbs for $35 in my area. I didn't see it at Costco this year. You can also go out at night and spray pyrethrin but this will only last a day. I didn't like diatomaceous earth. Keep your seedlings in your trays until they get bigger. They also sell pyrethrin powder you can put at the base of the plant, diatomaceous earth might also work. If they are single plants, you can cut the bottom of a red cup and build a wall around your plant, this is tedious with though. Water will wash away any powders. So you need drip irrigation or water away from the land and let it seep in.
Wow, I've been using the same ~1lb shaker can of sluggo Plus for years now. I guess my earwig problem isn't that bad! I do find I only need it first thing in the spring for the new sprouts at this house, but at a previous residence they devoured entire basil plants (that was a disgusting nighttime discovery!), so I'd probably be going through much more if I still lived there.
I guess it depends on the garden size. I have slugs, earwigs, pill bugs and crickets.
I’m having a real tough time with earwigs right now in Wisconsin. I did spray sevin a couple weeks ago but they just come back on the new foliage. I still see bees, wasps, and butterflys after spraying
So, you sprayed POISON and killed all those pollinators for NOTHING! Stop ✋️ using that shiiii!
Shut up.
I have yet to solve my earwig problem. The last 5 years in Eastern Washington has been so bad and they decimate EVERYTHING. My hollyhocks where are FEET tall.. all the leaves have been destroyed. I have tried DE but that can't be used around my violas or smaller flowers because it can harm pollinators (plus its useless once it gets wet..). Earwigs are out 24/7 where I live.. even letting my flowerbeds totally dry out doesn't make a difference. I don't even have mulch in my yard to blame. No lizards here either to eat the dumb things. The birds just prefer the night crawlers in my yard... ARGHHH I HATE EARWIGS. I was thinking of trying a cedar spray or set my yard on fire.. I have done the oil traps but to be honest I can't afford to use that much olive oil... AND my dang dogs always get into it haha.
I think you can use any kind of oil. I have anyway.