If you like them and think they're wonderful decomposers, PLEASE do not reply to this post ]

They're probably in the billions in my strawberry bed and asparagus bed by now. I don't mind them in the ornamental beds in front of the house - but I draw the line when I can't harvest even ONE entire, lousy strawberry!!

I used to buy cayenne pepper in bulk and sprinkle it around each plant, but my pepper source stopped selling. It only worked so-so anyhow.

Any sure-fire kills or controls? The ground is alive with them and they're eating is out of control.

Thanks for the help! - nita

*From the "Anti-Defamation To Sowbugs League", comes this helpful hint:

"If you want to capture a mess of us, put down some boards(pieces of 1X4) near your berries. We like to nap underneath just about anything, but boards is our favorite. Sneak up on us before our alarm goes off in the morning, lift the board (real quick-like), and be prepared to either dump the board in a pail of water, or slam it down on the ground away from your berry patch and jump up and down like crazy on it. If you don't mind our screams, then knock yerself out!!! But, don't get c0cky. There's always more where we came from. So keep repeating this each night or until we move on to your lettuce or whatever else you're growing!"

gardenz

Sowbugs have driven me crazy for years!!! I gave up on strawberries, zinnias, and French marigolds because of them. And it's a struggle with pea and bean seedlings. Finally I discovered beer. I was putting it out for slugs (before Sluggo) and the sowbugs love it, they party, get drunk, fall in and drown. So now I put little cat food cans of beer buried to their rims around the beans, top it off every few days, and wash the cans out and put in fresh beer about once a week. Sometimes I go out at night with a flashlight and tip the sowbugs on the rims of the cans into the beer. One of the items on the food shopping list on the refrigerator is usually "cheap beer" which drew some disparaging comments, so now I call it "garden beer."

Lately the sowbugs don't seem to like Pabst, so we'll have to change brands.

Both of these suggestions are just my cup of tea, um, booze.

Gardenz - do they "stick" to the underside of boards enough to flip into a bucket of deathwater?

Jenniferch - I had to sow my snowpeas FOUR TIMES before I finally gave up direct-sowing. What finally worked was sowing into perlite-and-potting soil sixpacks and letting them grow to about 4" tall before setting them out.

Now I have snowpeas, but it's almost too warm for them to produce anything. We'll see if we can harvest maybe one salad or stir-fry out of that bed.

I'm definitely going to use beer AND boards ASAP to rid myself of a few hundred thousand of them]

Thanks a ton! -nita

A couple years ago I was in the same situation. We couldn't walk outside without slipping on them. I sprayed heavily with soap (a la Jerry Baker whom I have now disavowed) and they went away for years. Now they are back but in manageable numbers.

If you trap them in water or whatever, be sure to compost them and then use the compost to mulch your strawberries. The microbes that decompose the sow bugs will be in your compost and will start to attack the sow bugs as soon as they walk over the mulch. I think that is why my population is under control now.

dchall, I had never thought of such a thing! I will DEFINATELY try that now! Great idea!