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Vegetable Gardening

Roly Polys eating any leaves that touch the ground

15 years ago

Any leaves from my tomato plants or Zucchini that touch the ground have been eaten by Roly Polys. One poor Zucchini plant only has one leaf left. And don't someone say Roly Polys only eat decayed vegetation because I can see hoards of them chomping away on live healthy leaves. I hate to use pesticides but I have some Sevin powder that I never even opened up. Would this be a good thing to use to stop them?

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Comments (5)

justaguy2
15 years ago
They are crustaceans. Insecticides don't usually kill crustaceans.
mudster
15 years ago
This site says that Sevin dust can be effective. You can also use permethrin, it says -- naturally derived and less harmful in the long run.
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After the discussion of roly bugs here, I went to the garden yesterday and put more yeast in the bowl. It rained last night, but the bowl did not overflow. There were a wide variety of insects already floating in the bowl, including roly poly and - bellieve it or not - a squash bug. It was the first I had seen of the season, so I took it out for closer inspection. Yup, squash bug. I inspected the squash plants and found a nest of eggs under one leaf. Its gone now! I checked all squash and found one more bug far away on a trombocini squash plant. I squashed him and found no eggs on those plants. Just thinking that by eliminating the first generation of squash bugs, what a difference that could possibly make on the season. I'll be on close watch now and will likely add more bowls of yeast in all areas where there are squash plants.
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I have observed plowbug damage to be the worse in the parts of my strawberry bed with the densest foliage. It seems perhaps if one creates an ideal environment for the pest and then furnishes it with a buffet it will indulge to no end. I'd guess the plowbugs like that relatively cool, shady, moist environment of dense strawberry foliage. It would help to only water the berries, if you don't use drip, in the morning or heat of the day when the foliage will dry out the quickest leaving the polies less time to be in their comfort zone. Deep straw mulch which dries on it's surface where the berries rest helps too with the polies and fruit disease (botrytis). As far as who came to the table first, my berries are covered netting keeping out the pesky Robins that do like pecking berries. Long ago I watched a mother robin bopping down my bed showing her 2 offspring how and where to peck berries one at a time. Dang it, why don't they just eat the whole darned thing instead of taking a peck out of each one!!! That's when I got bird netting and it works very well. I do still get a bit of polie damage on the deep straw, it is worse on wet years like this one. Last year was drought and with the drip system there wasn't diddly for polie damage.
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As I'm currently afflicted with unenterprising worms, the heavy work in my compost bins is done by pillbugs, they do this well and they're welcome to it. It's far away from anything I'm trying to grow. Keeping pillbugs down to a low roar in the garden however is a constant battle for me, because they can and will devour any and all seedlings and any bean plants now matter how large. I have to use a dustinmizer weekly under plants that provide moist shade to the ground like my alpine strawberries, beets, herbs, even rosebushes, keep everything meticulously clean, and start seedlings elsewhere to win the war with the voracious pillbugs. I inspect the garden at night with a flashlight, and I catch them in their destructive acts.
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Although, roly-polies generally eat only decaying vegetation, they can also do damage to young plants/leaves when no compost or leaf litter is present. That being said, they've never caused me any problems. Besides they're kind of cute and the kids do love 'em as Ken mentioned. If you are truly experiencing problems with the roly-polies or just can't abide them, you may want try some non-chemical control. They really like to hide, so you may try to lay down pieces of cardboard or multiple layers of newspaper, leave them in place for a day or two and then when you check under them the roly-polies should be easy pickings... Now earwigs/pincher bugs... They're plain evil. Cut a rose and bring it inside and soon they'll be crawling out from between the petals and freaking out the family. And not at all cute with those "pinchers" on both ends... Mike
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rangerbubba
15 years ago
Sluggo Plus is organic and roly-poly's (also called sowbugs or pillbugs) love it. I kind of felt bad for the little guys by the way they went after it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dig On 4 Victory!
marlingardener
15 years ago
Roly polys ate a newly planted tomato, and I mean ATE it. I used Sevin and no more problem. If you want to go organic Sevin isn't for you, although it is less toxic than some insecticides.
hamiltongardener
15 years ago
I had that problem last year. There were handfulls of roly polies all over my beds and they were eating my plant leaves. I had lots of people telling me that roly polies don't eat leaves, they only eat the dead matter but I found research online which said otherwise.

Fact is, I didn't find anything to help the problem besides the nice hot days because it rained so much last year. Almost impossible to dry out the garden beds. I am hoping I don't have a repeat this year.

I had used lots of leaves, compost and other organic matter in my garden beds and I sort of wonder if I had invited the problem by providing ample decaying matter to support a population explosion, then when the compost ran out the population turned to my plants as a food source. It seems logical to me...one of the downsides to using compost?

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