Bt and bran

I've read that one way to get rid of cutworms is to use a Bt-laced bran, but I can't find such an animal, so I planned to mix my own. Any ideas of what ratio to use or how to mix it?

Carl

I've never heard of the Bt + bran mix, so I don't have a recipe. Until you find one, you can protect young stems by tossing a handful of diatomacious earth or fireplace ashes around them.

You can also use one or two twigs inserted in the ground so they make contact with the stem for several inches from the ground level on upward. If the cutworms can't encircle the stem to chew through it they can't do any damage. The tops of paper cups seemed to help me, too, but I think my damage was actually due to pill bugs, since I had twigs guarding against cutworms.

Recently I caught a pill bug in the act of chewing through a young seedling! They love strawberries, too, although I don't know for sure that they make the first bite - I suspect slugs, snails, birds or beetles are responsible for those. Cardinals love to peck at the strawberries.

Other people have reported the same thing, Honeybee. I do think that pill bugs did in quite a few of my young tomato seedlings, but the paper collar seemed to stop it. What gets my strawberries are box turtles! I wouldn't have believed it, but many years ago I caught one in the act, red-jawed, and I'm always having to deport them from my strawberry patch.

Cornmeal also works for cutworms. Sprinkle plain cornmeal liberally around the base of plants, reapply after rain or watering.

I tried that to no avail, but I think it was because I had more pill bugs than cutworms.