Pillbugs / rolly pollys decimated my peas and tender sprouts for two years. Contrary to the naysayers, it WAS pillbugs because I caught them in the act every night and early morning. I tried diatomaceous earth (they crawled right through it), cardboard rings around sprouts (they dug under them), rolled up wet newspaper (didn’t catch enough), oil/soy sauce/beer/you-name-it traps (didn’t catch enough). I honestly considered giving up planting the tender stuff. After two years of failure, in year 3, I have organically won the battle with the pillbugs in my garden!! I am so elated I’m posting this on every pillbug garden thread I can find! This battle takes commitment. I recommend prepping your garden beds, and a week before setting out plants, go to war. (Or plant your seeds and immediately go to war!) Wet down the soil and about every 2 feet, place pieces of citrus peel (grapefruit or orange), or you can just cut up the fruit. Wait until it’s been dark a few hours. Bring a bucket of soapy water and a headlamp or flashlight with you. CAREFULLY pick up each piece of peel and shake it over the bucket. Tap it to make sure all bugs fall off. The tiny ones really dig in and hang on! There will also be many that stayed in the dirt where the fruit was. Quickly scoop them up and dump them in the bucket too. The first night I did this, I filled my bucket to a 1/2” deep of bugs! Just left them there overnight until they were dead, and dumped everything back in the dirt away from the garden. I kept this up every night for a week, and now just check about once a week. I rarely find large ones anymore, just the teeny tiny ones. I have raised beds and the bugs hide along the edges during the day. I keep pieces of peel around the inside edges and if they are going to eat, they choose the fruit over the sprouts. You’ll need to replace the peels when they begin to dry out. Pillbugs are communal. I noticed pencil eraser sized holes around the edges against the wood. After digging, dozens big and small came out of the spot. If you notice these holes, place peel near them and the bugs won’t wander so far to eat (and potentially happen upon your plants). My peas and lettuces are growing beautifully and barely a nibble has been taken out of them! Lastly, I’ve read of many people that hand pick and throw the pillbugs into the compost heap. I would NEVER do this! It’s basically giving them a buffet to breed in. When you add that compost to your garden, you’re inadvertently adding these pests back in. Happy growing!

I'll add my experiences to this substantial list. I garden 15 miles north of Seattle and have been since 2006. I'm all organic and very much a "chop and drop" gardener - so a lot of fresh woody and green organic matter is laying around at all times. My three compost bins are nearly always filled to capacity, and I don't have surplus yard material hauled away, so this is how I deal with excess organic material. I would say that the woodlice have become steadily worse over the 10 year period. I think that all of the organic matter is one contributing factor, but I wonder if something else is going on in the environment that favors these critters, because I'm clearly not the only one struggling with woodlice. It would be interesting to get some perspective from old time gardeners with a lot more experience than I have regarding these critters: have woodlice always been a problem, or is this situation new or different? The worst damage is on seedlings: beans, peas and pepper seedlings were heavily damaged this season. I had to replant several rows of early peas and later had to replant pole beans. Nearly every seedling was killed in some rows. They cluster around the seedling stem right at and slightly below the soil level as they feed, and shelter in the cylinder shaped crevice, eventually girdling the stems. Once the plants are over 8" high or so they don't seem to be bothered. Strawberries are probably the next most affected crop. I find this damage somewhat less heartbreaking than the seedlings because no plants are actually killed--and I don't have to replant anything--its the fruit that is eaten. Yes, they ignore the berries until just before its perfectly ripe, exactly one day before optimum ripeness to be precise. My three compost bins are always teeming with hundreds of thousands of woodlice. I have no way to stir my compost, so its rarely hot and apparently an ideal environment for them. Occasionally the critters crawl up the sides and gather under the lid, perhaps when it does temporarily get too warm for them in the compost. Of course the compost eventually makes its way into the garden beds, along with millions (not hyperbole) of woodlice and their larvae. My veggies are all in raised beds, 24 are wood, one is galvanized steel. I go out after dark almost every night to see whats going on in the garden (slugs, snails, root weevils, raccoons, etc.) and numerous woodlice are always hanging out all over the wooden raised beds, presumably after or before having some fresh garden salad, to round out their diet. I will probably gradually convert all of them to steel. In addition to bean seedlings and strawberries, woodlice apparently eat wood, and they love to shelter in the crevice between the wood and the soil, so any reduction in the amount of wood in the garden will hopefully help. I've been mulching pathways with arborist much--because its free--and I think that will have to be discontinued as well, and I'll have to gradually convert to gravel pathways. Regarding natural predators, we have pretty much - none. There are no frogs or toads at all in my neighborhood. We have a lot of water and many streams (I have one on my property) but I suspect the water is too polluted for amphibians...who knows. There are some songbirds--towhees and such--but I never see them digging in my raised beds, which is what they would have to do to gain access to woodlice during the daylight hours. I've come to the conclusion that chickens may be my best weapon...I'm assuming they enjoy eating woodlice, yes-no? I know that chickens need to be kept in their run most of the time or they will destroy a garden. My plan is to let them out from time to time, supervised by me, and herded to where I know there are abundant woodlice. I would then expose the nocturnal and hiding woodlice so the hens can do their worst. A team effort is required, I think. I can imagine for example, having the flock ready and waiting when I move compost--and millions of woodlice therein--from the bins to the garden beds. Perhaps even turning a liability--inedible and destructive crustaceans--into an asset - fresh, edible eggs. One can dream. But -- as much of a problem woodlice have become in my garden, they positively pale in comparison to the rats. Cheers from Cascadia

These do eat plants when their numbers are high. They do. There should be no debating this. If anyone doesn't believe it, they haven't had an infestation of pill bugs and don't really have the experience to help someone regarding. I cannot grow legume or peas without killing these bugs in the area or they will take down every one of the healthy seedlings. I drench the soil in the area with liquid spinosad. Once the plant is established, it's good. I gotta eat, too. I read somewhere that pill bugs remove metals and is likely to remove some toxins in the soil. I'm still trying to figure why I have so many and what purpose they are serving beyond the normal "eat decaying matter".

Bon, I think the argument about whether or not pill bugs and sow bugs will rage on forever. Different people have different experiences. My experience is that in our climate, they'll eat everything they can find in dry years, though they aren't as much of a problem in wet years. It also depends on how much organic matter you have available for them to munch on. If they run out of organic matter to break down, they'll immediately start eating your plants. As you noted, they have to eat something when they get hungry. Grubs at the level you're seeing would worry me, but then, most grubs are not an issue, so it wouldn't worry me a tremendous amount unless I am having an ongoing issue with the types of grubs that are destructive. Grubs are simply the larvae of beetles, and there are many beetles that are beneficial. If you have too many of the types of beetles that are destructive next year, then the time to use milky sport powder to lower their population would be next August. We have a gazillion different kinds of ground beetles here and they are very beneficial, so I don't worry about them. In the years when we have an outbreak of the types of beetles that munch on plants, all I do is put a little bit of alfalfa (the kind that is compressed into rabbit feed pellets is fine for this purpose) into a 5-gallon bucket and just leave it there, sitting under the yard's security light. The beetles are drown to it and drown in the alfalfa tea. I scoop them off the top and toss them on the ground or on the compost pile, and the next morning, there's a whole lot more floating in the alfalfa tea. After a few weeks of that, all the problem beetles are gone. Since you have small children, you might not want to use a 5-gallon bucket if you think they might wander over to it and play in the alfalfa tea, but even a fairly shallow pan with water just 3 or 4" deep will attract and drown a lot of the bad types of beetles. You'll find beetles floating on pure water too, but they are a whole lot more attracted to alfalfa tea than to tap water alone. I have had years where the raised beds in my garden were full of grubs, though not as many as you're seeing, and they did zero damage to the garden plants. Dawn