Woodlice...the evil strawberry thieves!!!!

davemorton

How do I stop woodlice eating my strawberrys. Last year it was the birds and the woodlice, so I built a fruit cage, this year it is just the woodlice..

I had been keeping my eye on a particually large and well formed strawberry, you know, the sort that if you had just bought a punnet, you would pick out and eat before sorting the rest of the punnet out. It was ready to pick, so I lift it up, mouth all watering, and UURRGG, 2 baby woodlice in eating my tea!!!!!

But its not just that one, there are loads of them being devoured by the evil little things, and garden is overrun with them...
So advice is needed, how do I rage war on the woodlice (or at least stop them from eating all my strawberrys?)

wssla00

Are you growing them in pots or in the ground?

jeferey

Scrunch up damp newspaper and place it in empty garden pots tipped on their side for a week or more. The slaters make their home inside the pot so it easy to just remove the paper and the woodlice. Apparently they live on decaying matter so keep the area free of dead leaves etc.

davemorton

wssla00 wrote: »

Are you growing them in pots or in the ground?

In the ground. But I have never known a garden with so many woodlice, wish they were more edible really, I could be full for weeks.

wssla00

You might want to also left your strawbs off the ground with some straw or hay or even a plastic piece put over the ground so that they aren't rotting as the woody's will love them then!

I wonder if it would be useful to leave some mulch about somewhere else so that they eat that rather than your strawberries? I have a very greedy magpie that likes mine so I put out fresh apples further away and as they are easier to get to for them, they seem to like them better! Still have a problem with the squirrels digging up my raised beds to hide their nuts but they are pretty cute so I'm not too worried!

Allegra

I've had that last year with my late strawberry crop, and then I read in an Alan Titchmarsh book that woodlice do not create the holes - they just go and shelter in ones that the slugs have created and get the blame ! So this year, when I found a first holey strawberry with woodlice crawling all over it, I gave in and put slug pellets down.

Guess what ? No more holes.

bethesda

jeferey wrote: »

Scrunch up damp newspaper and place it in empty garden pots tipped on their side for a week or more. The slaters make their home inside the pot so it easy to just remove the paper and the woodlice. Apparently they live on decaying matter so keep the area free of dead leaves etc.

you can catch earwigs as well using this method