? on Potato Bugs

Do they harm anything in the garden? It looks like they just crawl around the ground.

Hap

Aw, they're just moving to the next plant. To eat it up.

NOOOOOOOOO....don't tell me that...........

They are not the crickets one....they are the ones that roll up into a ball when you touch them.

Hap

Did I misunderstand? Didn't you say you have potato bugs? Or did you mean bugs in/on/between your potatoes? Now I'm confused (and not for the first time...)
CJ

No, CJ, don't grow potatoes here. I'm asking for my DD, she has them in her garden in Chicago. The are about 3/8" long and have a hard shell. If you touch them they curl up like an armadillo. Still confused? Welcome to the crowd..

Hap

Sounds like a pill bug/sow bug. They need moist areas and mostly eat decaying vegetation. Sometimes going for tender green growth.

Yes, a pill bug or roly poly. As billy said. If she's having no plant problems - great. But I have an overabundance of them here, and I have to deal with them - in a more direct manner. Mine are destroying plants - at ground level.

Yeh, roly poly...that it....and I also remember pill bug. Oh, it's a shame to lose your mind.....lol

I ask if she is having any trouble.

Thanks guys. But if she is, how to you get rid of them or at least slow them down?

Hap

The old book I looked in said Paris Green. I doubt it's available any more.

I use Sevin dust, and only at the base of the plant being eaten alive. Not on the leaves, not anywhere else - because it is also toxic to insects, good and bad. Pillbugs are not insects, but Sevin works on them.

If you can't find Paris Green, how about Paris Hilton? She's overstayed her welcome.

HAPPY1;
It is my understanding that sowbugs, (Potato Bugs), generally only eat decaying matter, animal, vegetable, or mineral. I have also heard that at rare times they can eat live plants, but I dont think that is their druthers, and it is supposed to be the exception rather than the rule.

Lilly Miller makes a product called Sowbug Bait that is supposed to be good, but I have never tried it.

Thanks.

I know what the "books" say, but durn it, they eat my plants at the base. Calla lilies have been badly affected. I did see something written the other day that acknowleged their destructful behaviour. It referred to "certain species"....

CEEJAYTOWN,
No one is saying they DONT do that, re: eating live plants, but that behavior is out of character for the insect, as eating live stuff is NOT NORMALLY what they do.

Here, in my yard, they eat live plants. I don't believe it's out of character at all.

Now Jasper, don't pick on Paris. She's one of the beautiful, cough, people.
She's also making a video and singing. (They're still trying to find her talent. I think they should quit looking.)

Billy...they can search until the end of time and they'll come up with nothing.
Her only recourse is to hope that some city starts the tradition of a Pill Bug Festival....she could be the Queen.

Here is an undocumented FYI for those curious about Pill Bugs:
According to a friend of mine who was Superintendant of the Gas Co. here for almost 30 years, the gas co. workers have found that when there is an underground gas leak, even a very slight one, Pill Bugs (or Sow Bugs) will turn a very bright blue in color...instead of being their usual gray color.....

He said he has seen this countless times over the years and found it to be true every time.

Laugh!

Amazing!

JASPERDALE,
You know, of course, dont you, that NOW I have to create a gas leak just to see my sowbugs turn blue!!

I like you, ski.....

Someone after my own heart...

Hey Hap, I've got lots of Pill Bugs here. So far they aren't eating my plants but they probably would if they ran out of nice decaying plant matter. For the most part, it's been my experience they are normally harmless. I've read they are actually beneficial to the decomposition process because they break down organic matter and should be left along but they are Crustacea. Crustacea are scavengers so they probably do mix in a little live plant in with the dead or decaying plants.

I'd ask your daughter to try Diatomaceous Earth. That ought to do them in quite nicely.

Skidivur...just trust me on the gas thing....it's not worth blowing up the house.!!! However...if you have a problem neighbor........

As an adjunct, gas leaking underground over time sucks all the oxygen out of the soil and turns it into concrete...it becomes white and impervious to water...and will kills roots of trees etc.

A few years ago the street trees down the block started appearing sickly and were defoliating. Eventually 3 or 4 of them died. The gas line that feeds the houses on that side of the street had numerous pin hole leaks in it when they dug out the trees. The soil about 2 feet down looked like chalk.

They had to break it up with jack hammers to get it all out. They figured it had been slowly poisoning the soil for 5 or 6 years.

It's amazing how nature, in some ways, sends out signals to protect us. Life is good.

Hap

Wow, that's interesting!

How true Happy!

Sounds like Mother Nature turned the soil to hard chalk in an attempt to seal off the gas leak!

YES !!! And did it for FREE no less!!!! LOL