A home garden is an exciting place where you can spend some quality time growing your favorite produce and enjoying some leisure time. It not only adds to the picturesque appeal of your home but also offers you the flexibility to grow vegetables and fruits you love to eat. It is equally important to maintain your home garden and make sure there are no insects around, especially earwigs that could easily damage your precious plants and handiwork. Before you start eliminating such pests, it is good to know about earwigs, why they find a shelter in your garden and how to keep them away.
What are Earwigs?
Earwig is a long, copper-brown insect with a tail end that features two large pinchers. Earwigs use these pinchers to catch insects for eating and for reproduction. While a few might come equipped with a pair of wings, others normally do not have them. Although they are beneficial for keeping your home garden pest-free, their large numbers might lead to infestation. If you encounter such a problem, use an earwig killer or call a professional exterminator.
Earwigs Like Damp Places
Earwigs like to build homes in damp places of the garden offering good shelters such as beneath the potted plants or mulched vegetative beds. A good nutrition supply, as well as the damp conditions, are likely to have earwigs breeding in your garden. They normally tend to feed on plant debris scattered on the grass or under plant containers. If you have dahlias, roses, marigolds, corn tassels, herbs and zinnias in your home garden, you have to be extra careful as earwigs like to feed on such vegetation. Fruits like apricots, peaches, and berries are also a tempting nutrition for these beneficial insects.
Controlling Earwigs In Your Garden
Controlling earwigs might not be as easy as getting rid of ants in your garden or improving air quality in your condo. However, it can be achieved if you practice diligence. Use the following tips to keep a check on the numbers.
∙ If you notice earwigs accumulated in a section, immediately clear away the mulching and let the sand dry out a little bit.
∙ Use rolled newspapers or cardboard boxes to drive away earwigs by spraying some water on them and placing these damp accessories in your garden during the evening.
∙ Use food supplies like oatmeal or bran in boxes or rolled newspaper to lure earwigs to these traps. They usually tend to feed at night and look for a damp abode during the day.
∙ Make traps sprayed with vegetable oil and coated with a thin layer of tuna can content or cat food.
∙ Add diatomaceous earth to the sand in your home garden to get rid of earwigs. Reapply within a week if their count is still large.
∙ Cover the base of stemmed or woody plants with sticky substances like tape or petroleum jelly so earwigs get stuck in it and cannot crawl up the stem to eat leaves or fruits.
∙ Use a good quality insecticide designed for crawling insects, especially in the evening.
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