Earwigs vs. winter sowing

15 years ago

I haven't tried winter sowing yet as I just found this website a couple of months ago. My question is, have any of you had problems with earwigs eating the seedlings before the secondary leaves come out or after transplanting the seedlings into the soil? I direct seeded cosmos, profusion zinnia, and marigolds and the earwigs ate them all! They left the allysum alone though. I ended up going to the greenhouse and buying cosmo plants and I'm doing without the zinnia and marigolds. I'm thinking that by winter sowing, the plants will be growing before the earwigs come out.

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Comments (4)

dawiff
15 years ago
Well, to be honest, I have had a problem this year with something eating my seedlings after I've planted them out. Earwigs, slugs, rabbits, and chipmunks are some of the obvious culprits that come to mind.

Some clumps have just disappeared, some have been obviously chewed on, just stubby stems left with no leaves. Something -- I'm pretty sure it's rabbits -- recently chowed down on all my beautiful lupine seedlings! Just today I decided to set out a diversion platform feeder, hoping the seeds, dried fruit and lettuce trimmings will distract the little beasts long enough for my seedlings to regrow/recuperate.

I'm thinking that next year I might pot up a bunch of my seedlings, and grow them on in some kind of caged setup like the one Donn made, and then either plant them out in the fall, or try overwintering them with lots of mulch.

It's been very frustrating!

However, that said, I don't want to dissuade you from winter sowing. I have a great time collecting seeds and sowing them in the dead of winter, and the ones that have survived are doing well. Winter sowing is a great and very inexpensive way to get lots of healthy hardy plants.
prunella
Original Author
15 years ago
I thought rabbits or birds or even ducks were the problem at first too. So I put some seeds in window boxes and have them on my deck railing with gutter guard over the top. That should eliminate ducks and rabbits and even curious birds. When the seeds came up the primary leaves still were chewed off. It has to be earwigs. I can't see slugs crawling that far up.
I'm still looking forward to trying winter sowing, I was just wondering whether it was a way to get my plants developed a little more before the earwigs came out.
I see some of the cosmos I bought have some of the leaves stripped off towards the bottom now. I bought some Sluggo Plus today, I'll see if that helps.
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Muy bueno & thanks to all who posted responses on this one! I'm going to harvest the seeds I see forming and take my 'leap of faith' by winter sowing them on the solstice. Far as I'm concerned they're getting their "warm" today & tomorrow when the temp is hovering around 60 degrees here in north central CT. I checked Google + the garden watchdog website before posting the question here and got some good information but nothing related to winter sowing. Once I see the results of WS these seeds, I'll add my information to the DG website for the benefit of others. morz8 - one poster on the DG website said he/she transplants the self-sown seedlings every year. I'm no expert but since this is an eastern U.S. native species, could the reason you don't see self-seeds is your location? If I thought I'd remember to do it, I'd promise to post my results. Anybody who's curious is welcome to ping me and ask when the time comes.
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Not trying to get into the wintersow vs. not wintersow debate here but....... The only time it makes sense to wintersow is when you are sowing seeds needing cold stratification and I know some of the ones you listed do not need it. I sowed the Asceplsis incarnata in early August and plan to put them in the ground under mulch all winter. I am winter sowing some native shrub seeds needing a couple months of cold strat. in pots outdoors and three others that are perennials that specifically need it. There are no hard fast rules to this. To each his own. I rather enjoy sowing indoors in winter and have had very good results and it gives me an uplift in winter to do that. I have had good head starts on healthy plants this way and have sowed many SW shrubs, perennials, ornamental grasses, cactus, etc. I always have something indoors in winter I am sowing. I usually start them in October or November in a large sunny S. exposure window and grow them very cool in the coldest dark months sort of in a wait pattern, then let them get warm again in late Feb when the sun comes stronger. I use lights sometimes if necessary but usually they just sit there in the cold. I am not a wintersower to the degree popularized to a hobby level of lots of containers with holes, lids etc craze with every seed I get being done that way. I just use regular pots in the shade under the carport for the seeds specifically needing a cold period. For penstemons its good, they come up when its still very cold. Some seeds needing cold I direct sow. Sometimes I experiment and try all different ways to see what does best with a backup supply to resow in spring. Look up your different varieties and see what they need and go from there. I have sowed seeds as early as October and had established plugs to put into the ground come spring. Other times I put the late summer sown seedlings in the ground in late fall and cover them with leaf mulch and had good well rooted starts that way in spring. Look at nature, she does that all the time with seeds that have fallen. Mostly, make it fun for yourself and do what you want. Save extra seeds for insurance, or try multiple ways and experiment. Do a test in a damp paper towel with a few seeds to see if they sprout in a few days. Often that will tell you want you need to know.
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tiffy_z5_6_can
15 years ago
I just transplanted some Buttefly Weed into pots and placed them on tables I had made. The tables are 3 feet off the ground. The other day I noticed one of the seedlings was gone, except for the roots. In the evening, I noticed a little Junco pecking at my pots, so I placed a square wire basket over the ones he found most favourable. Since then, he goes over and just sits on the wire looking at the seedlings below so there hasn't been any more damage.

I used to live in the city 20 minutes away and the earwigs were horrible. Here, they are not as bad, so I'm not too concerned about them.

If you search for earwig control you'll find a lot of options to decrease the population in your gardens.
prunella
Original Author
15 years ago
I went to the garden center today and bought some Sluggo Plus. It's supposed to take care of slugs and earwigs. Hope it works.

Earwigs vs. winter sowing

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Earwigs vs. winter sowing

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dawiff

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