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

Effective Organic Control to use is Diatect V. This is from the Natural Gardener website: Protect your new vegetable transplants from trouble. Have you ever had a wonderful day of gardening only to return the next morning to find half your transplants have been cut off at the base? Well, there are two possible culprits, the cutworm or pill bugs (aka rolly-pollies). A cutworm is a caterpillar that lives in the soil and will wrap itself around a new transplant at the base and cut it off. You can either protect the plant with a collar around the base or place a stick next to the stem so the cutworm will wrap around the stick along with the stem and not be able to cut through. Once the plant is established, the cutworm is not affective. The Pill Bug will gnaw at the base of a seedling or a new transplant. Once the seedling or transplant is established, the pill bug will generally leave the plant alone, so you need to be diligent about protection for only a short period of time. First for pill bug control keep the area on the drier side. Water early in the morning. This allows the top part of the soil to dry before night, when the pill bugs are active. Also keep mulch away from plants during this period of time. In the evening dust with Diatect V, diatomaceous earth (D.E.) and pyrethrin, around base of plants. Set up boards, grapefruit halves or banana peels as traps for the pill bugs and scoop them up every morning and dump into soapy water to get the population down. Pill bugs, like many pests, have their place in life as decomposers of dead plants or weak plants, so control is only needed during the early stages of the plant's life. The rest of the time let the pill bugs do their work. Roger and John have been doing tests here at the nursery and have been having great success with the certified organic pesticide Diatect V. It is a mixture of Diatomaceous Earth (D.E.) and pyrethrin. It does not have piperonyl butoxide as many other D.E./ Pyrethrin mixes do. Some of the harder to control bugs that we have success with include four-line bugs, squash bugs, stink bugs, harlequin bugs and other hard-shell bugs. It is best applied with an applicator to really get the dust where the bugs are - on the underside of leaves and the ground where they jump when they are disturbed. We have several different types. RogerÂs and JohnÂs favorites include the pest pistol, which is a simple accordion style pump bottle, and the dustin-mizer which is a hand-crank applicator that electrically charges the dust particle so it is attracted and sticks the plant - a must for large gardens. When you apply this product, you must take care not to inhale the very sharp silica particles of the D.E. Here is a link that might be useful: Organic pest control

I've used bagged cedar mulch in a couple of rows in the veggie garden. It did not seem to perform any better or any worse than any other mulch. I discontinued using it because the coppperheads like it a little too well and spent a lot of time lying on top of it and scaring me to death. In my garden, hay and/or straw do not seem to attract rodents, but then I have lot of cats and the cats perform very efficient rodent control. Until we raised the garden fence even the bobcats hung out in the garden and did some rodent control. I'd prefer a garden without rodents, snakes or bobcats, but there's only so much you can do to keep the wild things out in the wild when you're surrounded by wilderness. I have to say that keeping all the beds and all the paths in the garden heavily mulched in winter/early spring is even more beneficial than keeping them mulched during the main growing season. In the "old days" before I began mulching heavily, I'd get huge numbers of late winter/early spring weeds in the garden and have to spend a lot of time pulling them out or digging them out before I could plant. Now I just leave the mulch in place all winter, rake it out into the pathways at planting time, and then re-mulch when seeds have sprouted or transplants have become established. The savings in time is unreal. Not long ago a friend stopped by and asked to borrow a hoe. I told him I didn't have a hoe, and he looked at me like I was nuts. Really, though, who needs a hoe? With raised beds and heavy mulch, any weeds that sprout are easy to hand-pull. I used to have a hoe....and it did disappear.....and I don't know what became of it! Maybe it is buried under all the mulch? Dawn

Honeybeem, You can use any mulch you want. I use whatever is available, including but not limited to: straw (better than hay because it doesn't have seeds), hay (even old, half-rotted hay is fine as it enriches the soil as it breaks down), grass clippings, shredded paper, pine bark fines or shredded hardwood mulch, sheets of cardboard or sheets of paper (as a barrier layer under other mulch), chopped/shredded autumn leaves, etc. To keep weeds from growing up from underneath the soil and coming up through the mulch, I like to lay down a barrier like 12-14 sheets of newspaper or heavy cardboard and then put an organic (in this case, organic meaning once-living) mulch like straw or grass clippings or bark mulch or whatever on top of the paper or cardboard. The newspaper or cardboard also prevents weed seeds that sprout in the mulch from growing down into the soil, as long as you pull them before they manage to work their roots down into the cardboard or newspaper. I usually start out in the spring with a layer of pine bark mulch or shredded leaves because that is what is left on the surface of the beds from last year. (Keeping your beds mulched heavily after the growing season ends will keep winter weeds from sprouting in your garden and leaving you a big mess to clean up before you begin planting in late winter or early spring.) I rake the mulch back if I am sowing seeds and then gently rake it back (using my hands or a small trowel) around the young plants after they are up and growing. If I am transplanting, I rake away the mulch in the area I'm going to put a plant, dig the hole, plant it, water it in and then pull the mulch back over the soil. One thing I am careful about is to make sure the mulch comes up pretty close to the young plants but doesn't touch them during the rainy season. One thing about mulch is that it is generally cool and moist and attracts certain critters like snails, slugs, pill bugs and sow bugs, etc. In my raised beds, slugs and snail are not a problem--we just don't have them here in our heavy clay soil in southern OK, but I use organic snail and slug baits to keep the pill bugs and sow bugs (we called them doodle bugs when I was a kid) away from my plants. There are many brands, and the key to finding an organic one is to find one that's active ingredient is iron phosphate, which is harmless to pets and wildlife. You don't want to use the chemical one that has metaldehyde as an active ingredient because it is toxic. I generally use whatever I can find, usually Slug-Go or Slug-Go Plus (especially formulated for slugs/snails plus doodle bugs) or Escar-Go! if I am shopping in an organic nursery, or if shopping in big box stores, one commonly seen organic brand is from Safer. I mention the snail, slug and doodle bug issue because they like to live in mulch, and they are great decomposers of organic material, but they also like to feed on young green plants especially if you have a large population of them. I put the snail and slug bait down on top of the mulch, following the directions on the package, just as soon as I put the mulch on the beds (unless rain is expected that day). Rain can wash it away, so I try not to put it down if rain is in the forecast, although this year I've put it down twice already because rain is in the forecast every day. I start out with a fairly thin layer of mulch--an inch or two early in the season (March) when the ground is still cool because mulch keeps the soil from warming up as quickly. Then, as the growing season goes on and the temperatures warm up, I add more and more mulch. I use a grass catcher to catch grass clippings in the yard sometimes and put those on top of the existing mulch in a fairly thin layer (too thick and they get yucky). Other times, I use the mulching feature of the mower and let the clippings fall to the ground where they will feed the grass as they decompose. Mulching strawberries can be a little iffy. The sowbugs and pillbugs I mentioned, and many other garden pests as well, love strawberries. I'd probably use fresh, dried straw around the berries because the straw would not be as attractive to sow bugs and pill bugs as bark mulch or something similar would be. If it is raining very, very, very heavily where you live, you might not want to mulch too heavily because the mulch will help keep the soil moist even if what you want is for the soil to dry out some. Even a fairly thin layer will help suppress weeds somewhat until the soil dries a little and you can add more mulch. By the time the real heat arrives in late June, I like to have 4" of mulch on the beds and I arrive at that amount by continually adding a little mulch every week as I get the chance. Finally, although contaminated mulch is not a huge issue, you do have to be careful. There have been some instances in the last decade where both hay/straw mulch and compost have contained residue of a specific chemical harbicide that failed to break down as expected. It happened in this country in the early 2000s and it happened in Great Britain last year. In Great Britain, I believe it was both compost and manure that was contaminated. And, if my memory is correct, early in the 2000s it was compost, manure and mulch because a lot of people use hay and straw as mulch. I'll link a previous thread that discussed it. When I get hay or straw, I am careful to make sure it has not been sprayed with the types of herbicide that have been a problem in mulch and compost in recent years. I believe this herbicide is no longer found in commercially produced mulch and compost in this country, but you can still get it in hay or straw you purchase (or receive as a gift from local farmers and ranchers) because the herbicide is commonly used to kill broadleaf weeds in pastures and fields. Some of my neighbors who ranch use this herbicide in their fields, so I can't use their straw or hay in my garden as mulch. You can to be careful because if it contaminates your soil, your garden will die and you won't be able to grow anything in that soil for 2 to 5 years depending on how heavily contaminated your soil is. The odds are very slim you'd get hay or straw with these herbicide residues, but is has happened to some people and it does continue to happen every now and then, so I thought I should mention it. And, if your municipality offers free or low cost mulch or compost made from grass clippings and shrub/tree trimmings collected by the city, be sure you wear gloves when spreading that mulch or working in it. Why? Because those mulches often have ground-up poison ivy as one of their components. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Compost and Mulch Contamination