They say that pill bugs (rolly pollys) will only eat dead material, but its a LIE!!!!! These little critters are eating everything in sight. My poor little eggplant seedling didn't have a chance.
Between the pill bugs and the slugs/snails, my poor little plants won't have a chance while I'm gone so I had to do something drastic! Now you know that I'm trying to do this organically so I've been trying not to use anything... just crush the little buggers by hand when I find them, but I can't ask my house sitter to do THAT!
Last night my husband had to make a run for Home Depot to get the watering system I told you about so I asked him to get me some "Sluggo Plus" which had good ratings by folks on the internet for killing BOTH snails AND pill bugs. Well they only sell it online at Home Depot so he picked up some "Ortho Elementals Slug and Snail Killer". It does say "For Organic Gardening" on the box so I'll pretend that it's organic.
I poured a bunch of it in the greenhouse (too much I found out after getting a magnifying glass to read the four point font). Oh well, I'm not going to pick up those little granuals one by one to remove them!
This morning I saw a dead slug in the inside of one of my red drinking cups (you know, where I planted my seedlings?) so it must be working. We'll see if everything is alive when we get home on Tuesday...
Let us know how the Ortho works. I heard that Sluggo was good too.
ReplyDeleteI hate snails.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably the snails - not the pill bugs. I also grow organic and this is what I use from Gardens Alive: Escar-GO! HA! HA! It works!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=2111
You have to checkout the site Kathy. It was great for me when I was first leaning how to go totally organic!
Does not stay "effective" as lomg as some other products, but I don't worry about "those little granuals" being picked up on dog or cat paws. =)
PS: Don't put stuff "in" your greenhouse because you are calling the snails in. Surround the outside of the greenhouse to "call them out".
ReplyDeleteAh, good advice Penelope. I'll have to do that!!!
ReplyDeleteI read that if you place cabbage leaves or lettuce outside the garden area, the slugs will be attracted to that food source and leave the garden area. You can then discard the cabbage leaves/lettuce. - Madison in Florida
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