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.

Hazel, Pillbugs and sowbugs are interesting little creatures that actually are arthropods. Well, technically they probably are isopods. They don't lay eggs in the soil or compost. They reproduce sexually with, um, activity between the female and male lasting up to a month, during which time he rides around on her back. His sperm fertilizes her eggs and the eggs pass into an egg pouch that is a part of her body. She will carry the eggs, and the young bugs they produce in that egg pouch, sort of like marsupials do. The young leave the pouch voluntarily once they reach a certain age or size, and it can vary. Most species of pillbugs and sowbugs go through many instars (up to 15) before reaching their mature size. So, having pillbug or sowbug eggs in your compost is not a concern. On the other hand, every pillbug or sowbug you see might be a female carrying around her entire current brood of offspring in her little pouch. Nope, no SUVs or minivans for these mamas. Slug-Go and Slug-Go Plus will not harm earthworms. I always used Slug-Go in the early days and it worked great, but Slug-Go Plus (which is the same as Slug-Go but with Spinosad added) became my favorite after they released it. The Spinosad was added to make the product do an even better job of killing pill bugs and sow bugs. It works great. If it is any comfort, my garden it totally full of pill bugs and sow bugs too and they are eating everything in sight---not just decomposing material but green plants, plant roots, cabbage leaves, squash fruit and tomato fruit. While they often focus on decomposing material, in a year when the population is huge, they will eat anything and everything. I found one in a tree eating a plum on Saturday when I was harvesting plums, which was a first....but, hey, it was fairly dry up there, unlike the ground and mulch below. I kinda hated to ruin its enjoyment of the plum after it had climbed all the way up there to eat it, so I just chunked the plum, along with its hungry little pest, off into the field. I am trying to stay out of my soaking wet garden (4+" of rain last week just made it a total mess) for another day, but intend to scatter Slug-Go Plus tomorrow.

With the pill bugs and sow bugs, I treat the garden beds for them once they reach a large enough level that they are damaging green plants or (horrors!) eating green or red tomatoes, which seem to be their favorite summertime food in my garden. When they are in the compost pile, I ignore them because in that case, they are beneficial as they are decomposers who help break down the organic matter in the pile. I don't worry excessively that I'm transferring them from the compost pile to the garden because I tend to transfer compost during the cold months when they don't seem to be very active. Slug-Go Plus is even better than the original Slug-Go, by the way, because they've added spinosad to it and the spinosad helps keep cutworm activity to a minimum. I've had good results with either one though. With the ants, try to figure out why they are there. Are they aggressive? Are they fire ants? Are they eating some part of your potato plants or are they just moving above-ground to get out of extremely wet soil if you're in an area that has recently had heavy rainfall? The only organic control I've found that really works with ants is an organic fire ant product that contains spinosad. There are several brands available but the particular one I see in stores in my area is by Green Light. I've linked an image below so you'll know what it looks like. If treating for ants, please be sure you use a product labeled for use around edible crops....most non-organic fire ant products cannot be used anywhere near edible crops. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Green Light Organic Fire Ant Bait

So maybe they really appreciate the compost I just added to my beds, esp. the one I haven't gotten around to mulching yet. It is a moist, shady bed so they're could be some fungus--I'll get a fungicide and see if that knocks out both problem. Something's been eating the turk's cap and can't see any mealy bugs, aphids or the usual culprits so I thought it might be the roly polies. I'll get some mulch on it soon and that might help too. No kiddos yet, but I did love playing with them as a little girl--so not just the boys!