Earwigs: Worth Losing Lettuce For?

Hi,

I have large numbers of earwigs in my garden and they have killed about three quarters of my lettuce and this, as you would imagine, I am not particularly happy about.

On the other hand the only other pests I appear to have are slugs/snails and the odd weevil, even the roses do not get greenfly. When reading up on earwigs it is suggested that this is due to these little omnivores.

Is this likely to be the case, in which case I am probably happy to loose some lettuce to improve the garden/other crops as a whole?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

 

Actually, earwigs are a gardeners friend, they eat lots of aphods and things. Though they do tend to wreck flowers when they go after pollen mite.

 

They generally go after soft foliage when there is no other food around, so it's usually a late summer event or after some weather.
They hide in any dry warm area they can find in the garden. I once saw them completely strip a crop of hundreds of birch trees. Couldn't figure it out for ages. Then for some reason I checked inside the top of the 10ft bamboo cane's supporting the trees. There could have been upto a hundred earwigs in each one. They came out to feed during the night and by next morning, no more birch leaves:(
Saying all that the tree's came back next season fine but the advantage of very few aphids. nature has a way of balancing itself out!!

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earwigs are EVERYWHERE this year! I must admit theyre peeing me off. until this year I didnt know they ate plants sometimes! we've had 2 window boxes full of seedling lettuces dessimated, though I didn't know what by until now :(

 

I disagree it`s earwigs, I would put it down to Keel slugs.

 

Did you mean "Zaphod Beeblebrox" ?

Zaphod Beeblebrox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Doesn`t just EVERYONE quote the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?:yess:

 

not those of us too young for it......

 

The reason that I have gone for earwigs is that the plants have died, rather then being eaten, a few at a time with only a small amount of damage that looks like it was caused by them being eaten. Each time I have pulled the dieing plants they have earwigs in them. Very few of the healthy plants that I have harvested have had earwigs in.

 

Have you checked the roots for root aphods/aphids ? These look like Aphids but are very pale, they kill lettuce stone dead.