IT'S A TRAP!

"tasty treat" says the doodle bug

doodle bug damage to potato plants

In the dead of winter, in the back corner of our back yard we put in a mini-hugelkultur.  We rescued some logs from this pile we'd been seeing for a couple of months.  By the way, the huge discarded tree pile is still there.  We piled logs for the base then added sticks on top of those.  The next layer was straw and dry leaves.  Finally we added a few bags of topsoil, some with compost and some without.  Just a little side note here, many garden centers will give you a sizable discount on bagged dirt, mulch, compost etc if you're willing to take the ones with torn bags.  I got a few torn bags of topsoil from Home Depot.  They were wrapped in plastic and the gentleman who told me about the discount even loaded them into my car for me.

Lots of potatoes went into the hugelkultur along with some strawberries and thyme and a few dill plants.  All that decaying material attracted some doodle bugs (pill bugs, sow bugs).  And then it attracted more.  And more.  And more.  Doodle bugs are great in small numbers.  They act much like earth worms, eating decaying material and processing it into healthy soil.  The problems come in when their numbers explode.  When they overrun an area and there are too many of them to eat only the decaying material they start to go after fresh young food sources .... like potato leaves and small strawberries.

mulberries in a beer bottle

hand picked doodle bugs in a clear beer bottle

The great news is that these "pests" don't have to die they just need a new job.  Doodle bugs can be trapped and relocated to a place where their feeding habits will be beneficial.  Ours are getting moved (gradually) to the compost bin.  A pile of leaves would be another good location.  Yesterday I hand picked a bunch and dropped them into a empty beer bottle.  Over at the compost bin I gave the bottle a little tap or two to make them ball up and poured them right in.  Since our mulberry tree drops a great number of berries everyday we also have a paper sack with some kitchen compost and mulberries that I'll be relocating to the compost bin today and we'll be adding a bottle with mulberries today.  I'm sure it would be much easier to kill them off than it is to give them daily walks to the bin but the walks are good for us, the compost is good for the teeny little crustaceans and they are good for the compost.  Not to mention that whatever might be used to kill them probably wouldn't be good for other insects as well.  We don't allow any chemicals in our gardens.  Some doodle bugs will be allowed to stay to break down the bottom layers of the hugel and killing them off wouldn't allow us to leave some there.

doodle bugs "trapped" in a clay pot

Update a few days later.  The paper lunch bag of kitchen compost was GREAT for attracting doodle bugs.  Unfortunately, it was also great for attracting Rufus.  My sweet little dog tore that bag open and scattered bits all around.  Next I tried brown beer bottles with mulberries inside.  I caught a few butterflies but no doodle bugs.  Yesterday I put out a clay pot with a few mulberries and some straw.  This time I caught a BUNCH of doodle bugs and a bunch of ants.  All of those critters got dumped into the compost bin and I refilled the pot with more straw.  It seems that this may be the method that will work.  We're hoping that daily doodle bug removal will save the potatoes and the strawberries.

What do you do about your doodle bug removal?