New enemy in my veg patch

[hedgewitch]

Would you believe me if I told you my Courgette seedlings were eaten by woodlice!!
I've never heard of woodlice eating seedlings before, has anyone here?
What can I do to prevent them (eco friendly natch).
Just when I'd won the battle with the slugs and snails too.....

[MKG]

Yes - mine.

It's a housekeeping exercise. They live in dark, very moist places (they breathe through gills, would you believe?). Discover and destroy those places and you've cured your problem. If you're really adventurous, the woodlouse is the only land-living relative of the shrimp and prawn, and it's said that they taste just like that. I can't vouch for it.

[Clara]

If you're really adventurous, the woodlouse is the only land-living relative of the shrimp and prawn, and it's said that they taste just like that.

[marshlander]

If you're really adventurous, the woodlouse is the only land-living relative of the shrimp and prawn, and it's said that they taste just like that.

...and... they used to be called pill bugs and taken as medicine!

[Ellendra]

In the US they're still called pill bugs, now at least I know what you're talking about.

Never heard of using them as medicine. Maybe after I get some birds I'll let them have all the "pills" they want :p

[Mainer in Exile]

In the US they're still called pill bugs, now at least I know what you're talking about.

In my part of the country, we called them potato bugs. My daughter's friend, from Utah, calls them "roly-polies".

I usually just call them "chicken food" now, though. Our chooks love them.

[Odsox]

Are you sure they're woodlice ?
I have been plagued (literally) by earwigs for the last couple of years, especially in my polytunnel.
I have upside down tin cans on sticks filled of hay and every morning have to dispose of several dozen in each can. They browse off just about anything, especially emerging seedlings and eat big holes in the leaves of established plants. When I do my rounds with a torch just before bedtime there are swarms of earwigs everywhere munching away.
Tony

[Cheezy]

I'm with odsox, my wife always calls woodlice, earwigs!.

heres what the rhs say's about woodlice, apparently they do attack seedlings

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0202/woodlice.asp

Earwigs are a known pest of the gardener and like nothing better than destroying flowers (delia's and Crythanth's esp.)

Has anyone else noticed that in "my day" all woodlice used to roll up into balls (hence pill bug), these days very few do. Apparently its a mutation, and the non rolling ones are more sucessful than the "good ol' fashioned variety", well in the N.E they are. (I was having this discussion with my neighbour who seemed to be well up on pill bugs )

[Mal]

Ooh, that explains why mine keep rolling up in to a ball, which I'd never seen before. It is fairly old fashioned round where I live too - that must explain it.

[hedgewitch]

Definitely woodlice - if I hadn't seen them nibbling away at my courgettes with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it.

I'm now on my second sowing of courgettes (they've eaten 5 in total).
Fingers crossed one seems to be OK and is getting a reasonable size.

[hedgewitch]

I have 2 baby Courgettes!!!!

I am so excited!!!!

And I've learnt a valuable lesson for next year as well - cover the seedlings in an old 5 litre water bottle so the little critters can't get to them.

[Millymollymandy]

Well done! I use those 5 litre water bottles a lot in the veg patch - mostly over lettuce that has just germinated to keep the slugs off or little plants that I've just transplanted.

[MINESAPINT]

I have never heard woodlice called pillbugs but I do find pill millipedes on my garden.

[hedgewitch]

Pill Bugs are what Americans call them.

[MINESAPINT]

Roger