- Author: Help Desk Team
Earwigs are one of the most common pests in our gardens. There is a lot to learn about them besides knowing how to prevent the damage they cause.
Fun facts about earwigs:
- Their name probably comes from myths surrounding these insects:
- They sometimes enter peoples' ears when they are sleeping and they sometimes burrow into the brain
- The forceps appendages at their rear ends look like tools to puncture ears for earrings
- The expanded wings of earwigs have the shape of human ears
- The common and abundant earwigs in our gardens weren't even in California 100 years ago.
- Roald Dahl, author of children's books, has a character in George's Marvelous Medicine that urges the grandson to eat a ‘big fat earwig' and tells him how to do it so it wouldn't grab his tongue with the ‘sharp nippers on its back end.
- Roald Dahl also mentions earwigs in James and the Giant Peach where the characters find an earwig inside the giant peach.
- Under their hard, shiny wing covers, they have remarkably large and complex flight wings that spring from folded to flight without muscles. (These wings expand to 10 times larger than when folded.)
- Female earwigs watch over their eggs and newly hatched young, protecting them and keeping them clean until they are old enough to fend for themselves.
Did you know?
- Earwigs are important predators of aphids, mites, nematodes, and other small insects and their eggs.
- Research from Washington State University shows earwigs can be beneficial in apple and pear trees, eating pests but doing minimal damage to the crop.
- They also feed on fungi and decaying plant material.
- They are food for other animals, including birds and lizards.
Tips to control earwigs in your garden:
- Remove their hiding places. Earwigs thrive in dark and moist areas during the day, coming out to feed at night.
- Clean up debris, leaf piles, and decaying plant matter
- Trap them by placing numerous traps throughout your yard.
- Use empty tuna or cat food cans with ½ inch of vegetable oil and a smelly substance such as fish oil or bacon grease. Place these in your garden bed with the top of the can level with the soil. In the morning, dispose of the trapped earwigs.
- Roll up damp newspaper, secure with rubber bands, and place in your garden bed. Next morning, collect them and shake the earwigs into a pail of soapy water.
- Baits such as SluggoPlus can be used, but often they are not effective if the earwigs have other attractive food sources like your tasty garden.
For more information about earwigs, please visit these links:
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74102.html
Ode to an Earwig https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=51351
Earwigs in California (published 1975): https://essig.berkeley.edu/documents/cis/cis20.pdf
Washington State University study: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/14/12/906
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County (SEH)




Advice for the Home Gardener from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County
Client: Help!!! I'm a relatively new vegetable gardener. I just planted my summer vegetable garden seedlings this week. Within the week I'm finding severely damaged zucchini seedlings with holes in the leaves and for some of them the entire seedling is gone. What is doing this? And what can I do to prevent such damage?
Control of these pests in the garden is usually a combination of methods. Hand picking at night with a flash light can be a quick and easy way to control the population. As you pick them off your plants or off the ground you can drop them into a container of mild soapy water. I personally like to wear garden gloves for this task. The water can be drained off in an out of the way spot in your yard and the snails and slugs disposed of in your trash bin.

The fourth possibility is birds. Pesky birds can do a lot of damage to your tender young plants. However, they are also your "friend" for all the garden pests they feed on as well as being protected by law. If birds are the "problem", to control the birds you will need to get some "bird netting" over your plants. Half-inch diameter PVC pipe works well for making an arch or tent over your plants. The method would be to drive 24" pieces of ¼ inch re-bar into the ground about 2 to 3 feet apart along BOTH sides of your plants (and opposite one another) far enough apart so that the PVC can be readily bent into an arch and slide over both of the opposite re-bars,. Stretch your bird netting over the arches and secure it in place with clips, string or twist-ties. You can also find some other methods of making these arches on YouTube videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEn-XQ5nA4k
Free UC Guidance on Snail & slug Management in the garden
(includes videos on identification of pest, applying bait, etc.):
http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7427.html
Free UC Guidance on Earwig Management in the garden:
http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74102.html
I would do the nighttime check for snails and slugs first and try some of the trapping methods before I went to the trouble and expense of putting up bird netting. With a little effort I believe you can get the problem under control. However, the sad news is it looks to me like the zucchini plant will need to be pulled out and replanted as there does not seem to be enough leaf material left to sustain the plant. There is some good news here though, it's early in the growing season and the new zucchini will catch up in no time.
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of ContraCostaCountyf (BHD)
Note: The UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).