Sow and pillbug reduction

I've had a good vege season, but the mulch, which did so much good through this very hot season, has also produced a horde of pillbugs to 'greet' my fall seedlings. What is your favorite eliminator or trap? I'm considering diatomaceous earth, but that would kill beneficial creatures too, right?

Sluggo Plus will kill pillbugs. :) Diatomaceous earth will kill earthworms. :(

We had a major pillbug infestation this summer. They were so brazen that we would see them walking around on our diveway in the middle of a hot day. Moving the mulch away from the seedlings didn't help much since the mulch would have to be down the street to be far enough away.

The diatomceaous earth kept washing away so we left flat rocks on the ground and then we picked them up and smooshed all the pill bugs underneath. My DH likes to squish them with his fingers (particularly after finding them chewing on the tomatoes) and I prefer to scoop them out onto the path and stomp on them. Maybe you know a small child who would like to earn a couple of dollar smashing bugs?

Just like other insects in the compost or soil, pillbugs have a job to do. They help to break down organic matter.

Other organic gardeners have told me that pillbugs will only eat plants if they can't find enough OM in the soil, or if the plant is already damaged. I don't know if that's true, but from observing my own garden for many years, I believe it to be true. I add tons of organic matter, including compost, and I have tons of pillbugs, but I have never seen damage to plants from them.

My compost is crawling with pillbugs, eating away. They're most obvious if I screen the compost, then the entire surface of the sifted compost is moving with pillbugs. I dump it in the garden, but never have seen damage. I plant hundreds of seedlings to my garden, spring and fall, and mulch them with pillbug-rich compost.

Maybe you could try topdressing your seedlings with compost? Maybe the pillbugs would eat that instead of the plants.
Or if you water a lot, maybe let the soil dry a little more.

Karen

Maybe I have a differenct strain of Pill Bugs, but they definitely attack the plants. My soil is so full of organics that it actually bounces back when I push down on it gently, so they may be eating the organic matter, too.

If my pill bugs would confine their appetites to dead leaves and compost I would be happy. However, their attack on my seedlings, starwberries, and tomatoes was a declaration of war. We don't bother the ones that live in the conpost pile or flower beds but the ones in the veggie garden had to go.

Belated reply: Since rollypollies take moist conditions and it is very dry here, I only have them where I am watering something - but then I have plenty. They don't seem to eat the plants, but they eat the fruits where-ever they touch the ground. I have had some luck with putting something under the fruits to keep them clean and dry.

I have a huge pillbugs problem here too.
They ate all my fresh transplants in the spring. I have tried everything !!!
Please help !!

I had some success this year with placing a couple of inches of coarse sand around my seedlings. The drip irrigation is under the sand so the surface stays dry. I think the pillbugs don't like the rough, dry sand and go elsewhere. About a third of my bean seedlings survived this year, which was much better than last year. We also had a major infestation of black vine weevils this year and they are even harder to get rid of than the pill bugs.

This wouldn't work for a huge planting, but last year I had a lot of trouble with pillbugs; they got quite a few of my carefully nurtured tomato seedlings. And I had a lovely layer of organic compost all around the plantings, too. So I put the replacements in paper dixie cups with the bottom third removed, and placed them in the garden with the edge of the cup out of the ground about an inch or a half inch. That seemed to take care of them.

I had assumed that I had cutworms at first, because I'd never had a problem with pillbugs before, but the plants were chomped even when I used my two-stick barrier along each newly-planted stem - usually a sure-fire protection from cutworms. Then I did some reading, and finally even caught a culprit in flagrante delicto. This year they didn't seem to be a problem but it was very dry, and I also let my seedlings get larger and stronger before I set them out.

i found them tunneling inside my radishes. i don't think they were just spelunking.

Check for rope and climbing shoes...

I'm just a lurker, but I had to laugh at your spelunkers 6aseeder. That's a hilarious picture and it brought back memories of my spelunking days in Texas. I'll remember this next I go out to tend to my spelunker population.