Blog

The Earwig: Evil Earbound Egg Layer or Pesky Plant Predator?

While you sleep, they’re coming for you. These vile creatures of the night live for one thing only: to crawl into your slumbering ear, lay their eggs in your brain, and destroy humanity itself!

OK, OK, not really. Earwigs may be creepy and they are definitely crawly. Earwigs are on my top three “most hated” list because they are fast, they have working pincers, and they get in the house sometimes.  But they do not actually seek out human ears, as was widely thought a century ago. (This notion was so prevalent that in 1910, when children’s author/illustrator Beatrix Potter proposed including one in The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse, her publishers forbade it.)

Even though I love to hate them, I know earwigs don’t deserve their bad rap. The worst they do is eat flower petals, munch holes in tender leaves, and turn up indoors. Earwigs are out and about at night, when it is cool and damp. By day, they find someplace to hide: in decaying plant matter, under a leaf in the vegetable patch, in your shower curtain if they can find a way inside. This year, we have an unusual lot of them due to our rainy summer. But it is mercifully easy to get rid of them without resorting to poison or staying awake all night.

Method #1: Prevent 'em. Keep them from getting in your house by sealing up cracks with caulk or weatherstripping. Pay special attention to openings at ground level. Doorsills and foundations are key entry points. But don’t ignore windows, either—those ugly buggers can scale a wall. If they do get in your house, it’s easiest to vacuum them up and then dump them out into a bag you’ll seal up tightly.

Method #2: Deter 'em. If practical, keep mulch away from your foundations and especially from doors or ground-level windows. Remove things like dead plants or rotting leaves. If you are an extreme earwig-hater, you can surround your house with a band of decorative rock instead of organic mulch. Let ‘em burn their crummy feet on that when the sun heats it up.

Method #3: Serve 'em for lunch. Make your yard a friendly place for birds: install birdbaths and feeders and keep your cat indoors. Birds will come and eat your earwigs. Plus they are pretty and they sing. It’s a win-win!

Method #4: Trap 'em. Lettuce, Swiss chard, or marigolds (even marigolds!!) got holes? Put a half-inch of salad oil in a tuna can and set that out near your hurt plants. Periodically, empty out the drowned earwigs while gritting your teeth and muttering “See you in hell, you revolting little monsters.”

Method #5: Trick 'em. Fill a clay flowerpot with straw or roll up a damp newspaper. In the evening, put this “earwig motel” in the garden near a damaged plant. When morning comes, you can (yuck) knock the straw out into a bucket and count your earwigs. Or you can (ugh) unroll the newspaper and examine your catch. Or you can throw it all in the rain barrel, I suppose. Or in a very hot fire. Or leave the motel in place, draw a pentagram around it, and hope for the best.

If all else fails, just hang on. When August comes and the weather turns dry, earwigs will make themselves scarce without any help from us. Good riddance!

 

Amy Boland is a Twin Cities writer and food enthusiast. You can read more of her food musings on her blog Cook 'Em if You Got 'Em. Her last post for Simple, Good and Tasty was How to Tell Where You Stand on GMO Labeling.