Author Topic: Friends and Foes (Read 4992 times)

kenkew · « **on:** March 12, 2004, 10:38:55 »

Earwigs; Some say friend, some say foe. It seems to be one of those in-between bugs. Personally I think they do more good than harm. Easy to collect as they love to climb. A tin or pot stuffed with straw upside down on a stake in the middle of flowers will attract them. Scatter the contents on the garden and the earwigs will go a-hunting. Look for them in seed cases of lupins and sweetpeas.

Beer_Belly · « **Reply #1 on:** March 12, 2004, 14:00:09 »

hmmm tricky - here's some more info to let people make up their minds

http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/earwig.htm

http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/fuchsia/page7.phtml

-B_B-

Hugh_Jones · « **Reply #2 on:** March 12, 2004, 15:00:08 »

As long as they can be deterred from ravaging your prize dahlia or chrysanthemum blooms, there is no very good reason for killing earwigs, since they dispose of a lot of garden pests.

eileen · « **Reply #3 on:** March 12, 2004, 15:28:41 »

Just wish they'd stop burrowing into my clematis flower buds though!! >:(

budgiebreeder · « **Reply #4 on:** March 12, 2004, 15:51:17 »

They seem to like to come indoors with the cut flowers no matter how hard i've tried to leave them outside.

aquilegia · « **Reply #5 on:** March 12, 2004, 16:14:20 »

(slightly off topic, but carrying on from BB's post) I once picked up a bit of green fluff off the sofa, only to fling it across the living room in shock :o when it wiggled at me to reveal itself as a caterpillar that had hitched a lift in on some cut flowers.

kenkew · « **Reply #6 on:** March 13, 2004, 19:31:05 »

Now isn't it strange? Aqui threw it away, not because (I suppose) she doesn't like caterpillers, but because it was in the wrong place. In the garden I doubt we would think twice about picking up a catty, but because it was on the sofa, it was the enemy. Mind you, if I found a sofa on my plot.....!

Beer_Belly · « **Reply #7 on:** March 15, 2004, 07:56:29 »

Another favourite hiding place for wiggies is elderberry clusters.

I managed to get hundreds of them in the boot of my mates car when collecting the fruit for my wine.

-B_B-

eileen · « **Reply #8 on:** March 15, 2004, 11:57:00 »

No more elderberry picking for me then!! :o Ian can have the job, thanks very much. ;) ;)

kenkew · « **Reply #9 on:** March 18, 2004, 07:40:20 »

Wasps?...

...or bees?

kenkew · « **Reply #10 on:** March 18, 2004, 07:42:28 »

...or mice even?

Ceri · « **Reply #11 on:** March 18, 2004, 08:06:28 »

my anthropology student daughter tells me it is just 'matter out of place' - don't you just love students when they've learnt something new! We couldn't move without doing something illegal when she was doing her A level law! Apparently we are repulsed by matter out of place, not because of what it is but what it is in the context of where it is. i.e. a hair on a hairbrush does not revolt most of us, where a hair in our dinner would. To me a mouse would be matter out of place wherever it was, but my daughter would probably want to feed it, even if it lived behind our skirting boards! Personally student daughters home for a month is turning rapidly into matter our of place!

eileen · « **Reply #12 on:** March 18, 2004, 12:09:10 »

Oh Ceri, I know just how you feel.

They're fine when they're at the end of a 'phone nowadays but very trying when they come home for a while!

Eileen.

kenkew · « **Reply #13 on:** March 18, 2004, 13:37:44 »

Too true, couldn't agree more, and if I get pests like those again I'm investing in traps and poison and a dozen cats!

John_Verney · « **Reply #14 on:** March 20, 2004, 12:12:50 »

:oWhien I was 17 I worked n a farm in Iona. I had done my washing and put it on a fence to dry . On taking it in I found 48 earwig s had taken up residence!!! :o.

eileen · « **Reply #15 on:** March 20, 2004, 12:54:42 »

Kenkew, for one horrible minute there I thought you meant daughters not mice :o That's what comes of having two conversations at once ::)

Eileen.

kenkew · « **Reply #16 on:** March 20, 2004, 19:47:17 »

I have 3 grown-up daughters and mice on the plot. Are you sure which topic I'm replying to?

kenkew · « **Reply #17 on:** March 21, 2004, 15:16:38 »

A single wasp went up the tiny gaps, came out and sealed up the entrances. This was late last year. What's going to come out!!

kenkew · « **Reply #18 on:** March 21, 2004, 15:19:20 »

I found these worms quite happily swimming around in the puddles on a plastic sheet on part of my plot. ??

budgiebreeder · « **Reply #19 on:** March 21, 2004, 16:31:06 »

looks like spaghetti Ken.Have you tried frying them.After all "owt fer nowt"

News:

Author Topic: Friends and Foes (Read 4992 times)

Hugh_Jones