Obviously I needed to show you this immediately. I haven't been this shocked by the results of a pest trap since the great fruit fly experiment of 2016. This is NUTS.
I went to an event put on by my local dahlia society. It was a luncheon in the backyard of one of the members. In that backyard he grows hundreds of dahlias which attract hundreds of earwigs.
It was there, just a week ago, that I learned about this phenomenal trick.
Earwig Trap
Instructions
- Cut a soaker hose into 6-8" lengths.
- Clip or tie the hose to a stake near the affected plants.
- Remove the hose in the morning and knock the earwigs out into a bucket of soapy water.
- Gag a little.
NOTE: Tapping them onto the porch was just for demonstration purposes, so you could really see. Normally you would tap the hose into a bucket of soapy water.
Earwigs are nocturnal and feed at night. During the day they look for somewhere damp and dark to hide. Adding the piece of soaker hose is like adding a luxury hotel next to their favourite restaurant.
As soon as I saw the trap and understood what it was the only thought in my head was:
GOTTA GO.
You don't show a gardening enthusiast something like this and expect them to stick around for cake.
Since these traps were in Mike's, the president of our dahlia society's garden, I was pretty confident they would work.
Another woman who heard about the trap at the same time I did started vibrating. Neither of us could wait to get home and try it.
It worked. Here's a longer video if you have the stomach for it. This is all from one trap.
NOTE: If you have trouble seeing the video below, the issue could be because of one of these things: 1) You're running an adblocker. If you are, add my site to your list of allowed sites. 2) Clear your browser's cache. Instructions for all major browsers are here. 3) Try a different browser (like Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Opera) Let me know if that helps. :) ~ karen!
If you missed my fruit fly experiment, I had similarly satisfying (and revolting) results with this trap.
There are other traps that work on the same principle, a clay pot stuffed with damp straw is a traditional earwig trap but you need a lot of clay pots and straw. A soaker hose is something a lot of people might have laying around. And if you don't you can just get a small cheap one from the dollar store.
I'm going to experiment some more with this, shoving a damp cotton ball into the piece of soaker hose to see if attracts even more earwigs from the increased humidity (which they like). I'll also invest in some butterfly hair clips to clamp the hoses to the stakes.
And maybe some of those airplane barf bags.
We inadvertently discovered another very effective earwig trap. The initial discovery was absolutely horrifying. A mug 1/3 full of black coffee left on the ground near the wood pile. We set this "trap" each night, and each morning yielded 30+ dead earwigs to dump out until there didn't seem to be any left to catch.
Now that you mention that ... anytime I leave a coffee outside (always with cream) I have the same thing! I'll give it a shot, and credit you if I post about it. ~ karen
Thanks for the tip! I’ve found a few earwigs inside our house, terrifying! Any recommendations or is this the time to call an exterminator?
Just a few earwigs I wouldn't worry about. Lots of earwigs I would. The only way these traps work is if you put them exactly where you know the earwigs are feeding. ~ karen!
Another amazingly effective earwig trap is which you have probably heard of , but I’ll throw out there anyway.
Put a 1/4” of any oil into a small disposable aluminum pan or empty, clean small butter tub. Add about a TBSP of soy sauce to oil and outside. This works day and night unless your husband steps in it. Be prepared in the morning to find a lot of dead earwigs in the traps. Empty into a bag and start again. You are supposed to put some oil from a can of tuna fish in the traps but I didn’t want to attract raccoons to my herb garden.
I do know about that one! I've never tried it because I'm sure to forget about it and end up with a swirling mess of oily earwigs in the fall. ~ karen!
Definitely the barf bags.
Recently, I cut some of my dahlias and brought the in to the kitchen sink. Immediately, 40...400....4,000, earwigs ran out. They were so fast it was like people wanting to get to the buffet line first! They ought to make a movie like "The Attack of the Giant Earwigs!" (shudder!!) Thank you for the tip!
Also I always hold my dahlias upside down after cutting and shake them up and down (so the stems don't break) to let the earwigs know it's time to leave. ~ karen!
My hens LOVE earwigs. Tasty little snack for them.
This looks great! Just wondering how high above dirt level you’re clipping the soaker hose lengths? I’d have thought they’d be close to the ground, but the clip makes it look like they might be 4-6” up on the stake…
Hi Judy. I have it so the entry is close to or even touching a leaf on the plant. I may experiment with putting some very close to the ground around the rest of the garden to see what happens. ~ karen!
That Mike is a smart cookie!
I’m in New Mexico, and typically not bothered by earwigs. I’m wondering if this method might work for other garden pests (like squash bugs!).
It’s squash bug-a-palooza around here and they seem to take refuge in the dark spots beneath the boards and other things I’ve put out. It would be so much easier to catch them this way!
Thanks! I needed to barf! No really, I love a trick that actually works! Happy earwig collecting!
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/BpMKgHysAde73rDJ/?mibextid=YlDasU
The earwig is why I never plant Dahia's. The last time was 40 yrs. ago. This is an amazing way to trap them. Now to figure out how to dispose of them neatly.Good luck.
Ed Lawrence uses this trick and uses a bucket of soapy water, dipping the hose in and killing the earwigs. Very satisfying:)
You just have to tap them into a bucket of soapy water. ~ karen!
What a great fix! Newbie question: do you wet the soaker hose before clamping onto the stake? And, please let us know how the cotton ball experiment goes - curious where you put the cotton ball. At the top, middle or bottom of the hose section. Where is the hotel entrance?
The hotel entrance is the bottom of the hose! So I'll put the cotton in the top. I don't really feel like it's necessary, but I want to just try as an experiment. ~ karen!
That last NOPE in the video got me! Ha! My Dahlias are getting ate up for the second year in a row. Last year was my first year growing them and I think this will be my last. Too many other bugs to deal with in the garden. Squash bugs, SVB, cucumber beetles, aphids, harlequin bugs, chickens eating my tomatoes. I think I’ll stick with trouble-free zinnias 😂 I love this trick though. Frickin Genius. And satisfying stomping.
You just have to remember to empty the traps every day otherwise all you've done is provide them a hotel. ~ karen!
Were you really sorry? I don't really think your apology to that earwig came across as being very sincere. Especially since you tried to trounce on it unsuccessfully how many times, had already killed numerous family members and then right after stomp on another with a "nope".
Totally sincere. 100% ~ karen!
So now you have a porch and your shoes full of earwig guts. Maybe you could have "released" them into something that could capture all that - not sure what. We loaned one of our neighbors a couple of long tables for a gathering they had and when we brought them back, we could actually shake the bugs out of them because they were outside all night and it had rained. They really are quick little things, aren't they? I'm on the Las Vegas Pam team when it comes to creepy crawlies!
Yes, you tap them into a bucket of hot soapy water. This was just for demonstration purposes. ~ karen!
I’m never going to click on an email when the title includes “earwig”. I’ve learned an important lesson. That freaked me out. I’m the idiot who worked with wolves and lived in the Sierra’s in a place where I spotted a millipede in my kitchen. Wolves, no problem. Millipede? No. I was the cartoon lady screaming and standing on the kitchen counter, a cell phones were way in the future but the landline was next to me. I called the exterminator at one a.m. ughh.