Garden Magic Company Articles
EARWIGS - Friend or Foe?
by Ann Barklow
Many people are squeamish around insects. I’m comfortable around most of them but there are a few that make me shudder when I run across them - and one of those is the Earwig. I’m not sure whether the problem is the pinchers they so diligently fling around on the end of their tail or the rumor that they crawl into your ear. In over 20 years of gardening, I have been pinched only once - and it wasn’t too bad. Mostly it hurt my feelings more than anything else. After all, I didn’t know it was in the pile of leaves when I grabbed them.
As far a
s having them crawl in my ear, that hasn’t happened.... yet. It is widely believed that the earwig's unfortunate name began with eerie rumors spread by the early Anglo-Saxons, who named them earwicga ('ear beetle or worm that wiggles'). These folks dwelled in sod huts and slept on straw mattresses, and occasionally upon waking from a sound sleep they would find an earwig in their ear. Maybe the earwig thought a warm and tight ear was a nice place to rest? In any case, a controversy has arisen surrounding the origin of the name, with new research showing that "earwig" may come from the ancient use of pulverized earwigs as medicine to treat diseases of the ear, resulting in the Latin name auricula. This latin name also lends itself to our main subject, the European Earwig, whose botanical name is Forficula auricularia.
The earwigs most commonly found in our area of Southern California are the Ring-legged earwig and the aforementioned European Earwig. It's the 1/2" or smaller European import that eats our tender young plants, soft lettuce leaves, corn silk and rose blossoms. But with that said, I have been gardening professionally for 20 years and earwigs have never been a pest problem for me. They don’t appear to be a pest problem for too many others either because I rarely get asked about them. Especially if you compare them to snails and aphids. You might be blaming your plant troubles on the wrong culprit!
Occasionally, I do receive a plea for help. Recently, Colleen from Manhattan Beach wrote: “My back yard is infested with earwigs. I’ve been trying to use organic methods to decrease their numbers, but have had little success. Each time I think I have them under control and I plant new vegetable seeds, they come out of the woodwork and eat all the seedlings!! I also find them up in my fruit trees. I’ve tried collecting them at night, diatomaceous earth, and leaving newspapers around hoping they will hide in them during the day so I can dispose of them. I’m not having any luck. Do you have any suggestions for me?”
Why some gardens are overrun with earwigs and others aren’t is not always clear to me, but the pattern appears to be the more mulch you have, the fewer problems you have with earwigs. Not fewer earwigs, but fewer problems.
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...the pattern seems to be...the more mulch you have, the fewer problems you have with earwigs
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This is because earwigs prefer an insect diet over your veggies and fruit and a good 3 to 4” mulch layer on top of the soil makes your garden come alive with tiny little mites, bugs, and organisms that earwigs will devour instead. I prefer to use shredded tree trimming mulch consisting of leaves, wood, bark, pine needles, etc. which is available for free from local tree companies. Some cities also offer free tree mulch if you bag it yourself. You may also use shredded tree bark, which can be purchased in bags from your local nursery. Adding mulch to the garden to help control earwigs may seem to fly in the face of our natural reaction which may be to find a technique or a product that will wipe them out once and for all. You may be thinking: "the mulch will increase my earwig population, oh no!" But not to worry, as I said, earwigs are an important garden predator, hungrily roaming around at night eating your real pests such as scale and aphids along with scavenging partially decomposed organic matter.
The worst case scenario with earwigs appears when plants and trees are set out in neat rows with bare soil between them. Boards, pieces of broken concrete or other inedible debris that can be natural hiding places for earwigs, add to the problem. Under these conditions, earwigs have a tendency to feed on your seedlings. On the other hand, when they are given a diverse soil surface of mulch on which to feed and hunt smaller critters, earwigs can be present in the garden in great numbers and cause very little damage to plants. Keep in mind the beneficial predatory role earwigs can play in the garden, before you try to eliminate them. If they are still causing damage to seedlings in a mulched garden, the best strategy is to raise your seedlings indoors or better yet, you can start them outdoors in a protected area like on a potting bench and only put them out into the garden when they are large enough to withstand some damage.