I've read the discussions concerning "doodle-bugs", "pill-bugs", "rollie-pollies" or whatever you want to call them. Some people say that they only eat dead plant matter while others say that they've seen them eating live plants. It reminded me of a big-foot sighting or something.

Well, I saw sasquatch just now. I've had small plants vanish overnight. I've seen larger plants vaporize away slowly until there was nothing but a withered shell and a stem. It took about five minutes and a flashlight to find the culprit, eating away at my LIVING plants.

I think the tip off was the squash. I had two, very healthy squash plants. Shortly after transplanting them, every time I'd check on them, they seemed smaller. "Hey, didn't this plant have four leaves yesterday? Hmmm. Maybe it only had three." Well, I know it had more than a stem and that was all that was left today.

I had a coyote cherry plant die for no reason within two days of transplant. Another was shrinking like the squash. Tonight, I went out and saw with my own two eyes, doodle-bugs eating away on my plants. But there is a kicker. They were only eating the leaves that were TOUCHING THE GROUND. Since I buried my plants deep, like I read that I'm supposed to, many plants are so close to ground level that the leaves on the end of every stem touch the ground (mulch) at the slightest wilting. Of course, right after transplanting to the ground, all plants will sulk a bit, causing what was off the ground to wilt to the ground. I think this is where they climb up and start nibbling away on the leaves causing more sulking, and more nibbling until there is just a stem left.

Kinda sux to find this out tonight as today, I planted nearly every plant over 6" tall. Now, I'm going around, brushing the mulch out from beneath all the plants hoping the leaves will stay up. It won't matter once the plants are taller as nothing will be touching the ground and the plants won't be weakened or stressed (hopefully).

As for now, does anyone know of a way to kill millions of "doodle-bugs" without poisoning my soil? When I say, millions, I mean it. There are places out there where the soil moves as if it is alive!