July 8, 1998

It is much more enjoyable writing about flowers and gardens, but along with the flowers come critters that crawl and drool their way into the picture.  Right now most gardeners have had it up to here with slimy slugs making the leaves of prized hosta look like a screen door. Meanwhile earwigs are enjoying evening dinners of marigolds, petunias, and vinca.  At night the munching sounds from the gardens are so loud you can't get to sleep.  The mild winter and wet spring were perfect for producing a bumper crop of these garden vandals.  Because both of these lovely little specimens feed at night, some gardeners may not know what or who is causing the damage.  It's pretty safe to say, however, that if your precious hosta leaves have holes, you have slugs.

Slugs are homeless snails (no shell) about an inch long and come in a variety of ugly colors, mostly shades of gray and brown, sometimes with specks and spots.   Unfortunately they can live to be six years old and to top it off, they have both male and female sex organs, allowing them to mate with themselves.  They mosey along on a trail of slime produced by a gland under their head. In fact, slugs are really into this mucus thing.  If you try to grab a slug, he, she, or it, will produce a thick mucus making him (them?) impossible to pick up.  And according to the University of Illinois (these professors need to get a life), this mucus can seal the mouths of slug enemies like snakes and shrews and can cause dogs and ducks to gag.

Since a slug feeds on decaying organic matter and likes moist places, he finds a flower bed mulched with chopped leaves, wood chips, or shredded bark the perfect place to settle down by himself and raise a family.  The best control for slugs is to eliminate the main source of food, the organic mulch, and allow the area to dry out a little.   Mature hosta plants will do well without mulch and the plants are large enough to shade out most weeds. While most hostas are slug magnets, some of the blue-leafed and crinkled-leaf types are apparently less tasty to them.

Many hosta growers report good success at repelling slugs by using pine needles as a mulch.  Other gardeners trap slugs using saucers of beer or laying planks or cardboard in the garden.  The slugs congregate in the beer or under the covers and can be removed by hand in the mornings and destroyed.  Other folks become slug hunters, going into the garden after dark with a flashlight and a fruit jar, picking the little beasts off the helpless hostas. What a lovely way to spend a summer evening..

Since slugs are mollusks, not bugs, insecticides are of no avail.  There are commercial slugs baits available that some gardeners have used with success.  Be careful with these and follow the label, especially if you have pets outside.

Earwigs are another problem in the garden and sometimes inside the house.  The name "earwig" comes from an old superstition claiming that these critters crawl into the ears of sleeping people and bore holes into their brains.  Scientists tell us this is not true, but when my wife Donna heard this, she thought I should be tested. Earwigs are reddish brown and about three quarters of an inch long.  They are easily identified by the pincher-like appendages on their rear ends.  Like slugs, they hide during the day and feed at night, prefer dark moist places, and feed on organic matter, such as mulch.

Earwigs don't bother hostas that I know of, but they do love marigolds, impatiens, petunias, and pansies (most any annual, actually). They can also damage some fruit and vegetable plants, as well as perennials.  Garden insecticides such as diazinon, carbaryl (Sevin), and malathion will control earwigs, but please read the label. Make sure it says it will control earwigs and make sure it says you can use it on your vegetable garden if that's where you intend to put it.  Don't kill yourself instead of the bugs, for goodness' sake.

Inside the house, earwigs will do no damage.  They don't chew on fabrics or carpet and they don't bite.  Rather than use some chemical insecticide, use a fly swatter or a vacuum sweeper to gather them up.  Spread some horticultural diatomaceaous earth on decks, porches, windowsills, and doorways to prevent them from entering. It looks like white sand but will destroy the insect's protective layers as they walk through it.

Right now vegetable gardeners should be watching for cucumber beetles on vines crops.   The beetle carries a virus that causes the vines of cucumbers, melons, and squashes to wilt and die.  The cucumber beetle is also the corn rootworm beetle so it is very common around here.  It is very important to keep this bug at bay.  Use carbaryl (Sevin) as a dust or spray and follow label directions.