pillbug damage on a potato stem, along with the criminals.

pillbug damage on a potato stem, along with the criminals.

Roly polies, pillbugs, Sowbugs, wood lice, potato bugs, or any of the other numerous names for these land dweilling relatives of lobsters and crayfish may munch on living plant tissue if no other food source is available. Even Howard Garret will tell you they are, usually, not garden pests.

Here is a link that might be useful: Roly Polies

Anytime they are present in large numbers, you will have a problem....the amount of moisture and your mulch must be creating prime conditions for them, and probably factoring in your weather this year.

My bad year with pillbugs occurred after I had been letting a little 1" sedum spread and fill in around perennials & shrubs - it was a little too happy and was doing a great job of covering any bare earth, while unfortunately making a great hiding and breeding place for pill/sowbugs. I pulled the sedum and haven't had a problem again.

If you can change the conditions in which they are living without altering what your garden plants need, they will leave or die. Or diatomaceous earth, DE can help to control them (horticultural grade of course). There are baits on the market too, often showing earwig, cutworm, pill/sow bug on the labels.

Horticultural grade DE? Maybe thats why I haven't had very good success with DE, I have been using food grade! I have removed the mulch from some beds, trying to change their habitat, and I believe they have moved on, but as we are in a drought and heat wave (108-113 last 6 days), it is difficult to remove all mulch and keep up with the watering. I actually imported these buggers, unknowingly. I had some bales of straw setting outside for a year, getting rained on. It was a prime location for them to hide.

As for them not having any other food source,,, they have plenty of mulch!

I really don't know if there is a difference between food and horticultural grade DE, I've only purchased it in garden supplies, not health food stores.

The problem with grades is that people will sometimes mistake the one purchased for pools, the filter grade DE with what works in the garden. Kitchen DE is out of my experience :)

Food grade DE is fine. The only kind to avoid is that which is labeled for pool filters. I'm with morz...I've never quite understood the difference between food or horticultural grade.

I'd be cautious with the DE. There are many different predators that live in the soil....ground beetles of many kinds, spiders, some beetle larvae, etc. Just something to remember.

Food grade and horticulture grade Diamotaceous Earth are the same, although food grade may be worked on to sterilize it some. Who would want to mix into their food something from the ground that has not been so treated?
Learning about the life of Roly Polies and then making adjustments to the environment to control the population is usually much more effective then any kind of "pest control".

Thank you for reopening this!!! I can't believe how many plants these bugs are devouring in my garden. There seems to be a lot of them there and I have gone outside in the middle of the night to make sure that the pill bugs are the culprits. They're attacking plants from the bases of the stems as well as the leaves. I heard various people say that cayenne pepper is a deterrent. Last night I sprinkled it around a plant and instead of deterring them these bugs absolutely LOVE it, and have been "congregating" and eating it all day and night. I'm very interested to hear what others have tried that has worked.

Understanding your enemy will help you control them, if that is necessary. The first step in control is to try to eliminate the habitat that lets your enemy grow inot pest proportions, not spraying some poison around that will kill off the predators of that enemy.

Glad this was posted-
I have an explosion of pill bugs in my garden. Despite what everyone says, they are eating the base of my cucumbers and winter squash. Not only do I see them during the day doing thism but after I applied DE around those plants (I put off doing it for as long as I could and I will lose all my cukes), I then notices weird lacerations on my developing eggplants. Went out at night and saw the whole plant covered in pill bugs.

I have a 1" layer of straw on my beds and irrigation. If you swipe away the straw where there is no water, no pill bugs, if I look where there is water- bingo. It's very hot and dry in CO and I think all bugs are heading towards water.

I don't know what eats pill bugs but I have a ton of wasps in my garden that are drinking water I have out for my bees. I haven't had to do anything with my caterpillar problems because of all the wasps but they don't seem to eat the pill buggers.

I haven't had much luck with DE, have seen VERY few dead pillbugs when using it. Tried Sluggo Plus, and have seen a few dead ones, but not many. Best thing I have seen work, is like others have already said, remove their habitat. But, here in Kansas, we are very hot and in a drought. It is hard to keep up with the watering without any mulch. I have muskmelon plants just setting fruit, or should say had, as the damage from pillbugs finally caught up with the stem as it finally broke loose after being eaten enough. And I had eliminated the pillbugs from that bed weeks ago! They are even eating the skin off my cucumbers!

Pillbugs / rolly pollys decimated my peas and tender sprouts for two years. Contrary to the naysayers, it WAS pillbugs because I caught them in the act every night and early morning. I tried diatomaceous earth (they crawled right through it), cardboard rings around sprouts (they dug under them), rolled up wet newspaper (didn’t catch enough), oil/soy sauce/beer/you-name-it traps (didn’t catch enough). I honestly considered giving up planting the tender stuff.

After two years of failure, in year 3, I have organically won the battle with the pillbugs in my garden!! I am so elated I’m posting this on every pillbug garden thread I can find! This battle takes commitment. I recommend prepping your garden beds, and a week before setting out plants, go to war. (Or plant your seeds and immediately go to war!) Wet down the soil and about every 2 feet, place pieces of citrus peel (grapefruit or orange), or you can just cut up the fruit. Wait until it’s been dark a few hours. Bring a bucket of soapy water and a headlamp or flashlight with you. CAREFULLY pick up each piece of peel and shake it over the bucket. Tap it to make sure all bugs fall off. The tiny ones really dig in and hang on! There will also be many that stayed in the dirt where the fruit was. Quickly scoop them up and dump them in the bucket too. The first night I did this, I filled my bucket to a 1/2” deep of bugs! Just left them there overnight until they were dead, and dumped everything back in the dirt away from the garden. I kept this up every night for a week, and now just check about once a week. I rarely find large ones anymore, just the teeny tiny ones. I have raised beds and the bugs hide along the edges during the day. I keep pieces of peel around the inside edges and if they are going to eat, they choose the fruit over the sprouts. You’ll need to replace the peels when they begin to dry out.

Pillbugs are communal. I noticed pencil eraser sized holes around the edges against the wood. After digging, dozens big and small came out of the spot. If you notice these holes, place peel near them and the bugs won’t wander so far to eat (and potentially happen upon your plants).

My peas and lettuces are growing beautifully and barely a nibble has been taken out of them!

Lastly, I’ve read of many people that hand pick and throw the pillbugs into the compost heap. I would NEVER do this! It’s basically giving them a buffet to breed in. When you add that compost to your garden, you’re inadvertently adding these pests back in. Happy growing!