Earwig by Mamboman
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[HOST INTRO] As the weather warms up, so do bugs. That’s why gardeners should prepare for pests early. In this installment of The Market & Garden Report, correspondent Guy Hand talks to Clay and Josie Erskine of Peaceful Belly Farms about controlling that buggy bane of the Treasure Valley: earwigs.(Clay) So, we’re going to talk about bugs today.
(Hand) Clay and Josie Erskine say dealing with garden pests means learning to think like a bug. That’s why they’re walking me toward a wood pile.
(Clay) So a lot of time, in people’s back yards there’s just piles of wood and just kind of misc. stuff (sound of rustling through wood) that’s just kind of laying around and that’s a great place for bugs to overwinter.
Josie Erskine searching for earwigs
(Josie) A lot of the bugs that like the vegetables we need are kind of like us, they need homes in the winter time, so if you just walk around and look at things that could be potential homes for bugs, wood piles or even like old bamboo rods, shake ‘em out, they’re probably full of earwigs. And earwigs do great damage to gardens, especially in Boise.
(Clay) So the number one thing you can do is just clean up any junk piles, especially wood . . . (Josie)Â Like there, there’s a big guy right there.
(Clay)Â And if you have all your wood piles cleaned up and your yard’s looking pretty tidy and there’s no overwintering sites and you still have a lot of earwigs, there’s a few ways you can trap ‘em.
(Hand) The Erskines say you don’t need nasty pesticides, just some tuna fish cans, soy sauce and a little oil.
(Josie) So you take your little tuna fish can and you fill it so it’s about half way full of (sound of pouring) soy sauce and then what you want to do is you want to put a little teeny skim of oil on it. You want the little oil to float around in a little puddle because they are attracted to the soy sauce, they get in there and when they’re trying to get up the oil coats and they get trapped. And so you don’t want to cover all of this soy sauce with oil or they won’t be attracted to it. So you just want to make a little thing that floats on top.
(Hand) Sort of like an oil island on a soy sauce sea.
Daisy Erskine making soy sauce and oil trap for earwigs
(Josie) Now put these traps out before you plant the plants ‘cause then you’ll attract the bugs before they do damage to your plants. Don’t put ‘em out after they’ve already eaten your plants. It’s kind of like preventative gardening.
(Hand) So with the weather conditions we have right now, is this the time to start looking for earwigs? Or is it still a little early? (Clay) No, now that it’s starting to warm up, the earwigs will start coming out of hibernation and looking for places to eat and things to eat, so now is the time to look for those.
(Josie) There’s a bug on your microphone.
(Hand) Apparently bug-infested already, I’m Guy Hand for The Market & Garden Report and Boise State Public Radio.
(Hand) Make bug noises . . . (Josie)Â laughing, I don’t know what you want us to do, and make bug noises? . . .
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Guy Hand is a writer, public radio producer and photographer specializing in food and agriculture. |
