I'm preparing various pots and containers around the house for my wintersown babies... although I am a few weeks away from having anything near big enough to put out... most haven't even germinated yet! But here is my dilemma...

For the past two years we've had a horrible time keeping the earwigs out of two particular planters. Last year was so bad that sometimes the entire stem and flower of a particular plant would appear to be black as it was covered with so many earwigs. I am wondering if I need to dump the soil (totally discard it) and use new. The planters are very large and contain a huge amount of soil so I'd obviously prefer not to do this. I had read somewhere... Trudi's site I think... that you can boil water and drench the soil with that. Do you think this would help kill any eggs? Is it worth the effort? Do I have to soak the entire planter or do you think the eggs will be close to the top... it will take at least a dozen full kettles of boiled water to drench the soil in each planter - so it will be very time consuming. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. I really don't want to place my small wintersown seedlings in these pots if they are going to be overrun with earwigs again this year. It really takes away from their beauty. I also don't want another year of going out in the late evening and having to drown the pots in soapy water in attempts to get rid of the earwigs.

Thanks,

Lisa