i was just going to write a post asking about them, as i have thousands it seems, i took a scoopful out of the strawberry bed last night as they are partial to strawberry fruits but not much else apart from dead stuff but they are everywhere it seems. i'm not really liking them being in the soil, under everything, they give me the heeby geebies. It's true they do taste like shrimps although i haven't eaten them i'm just going on what i have read. ive just been out in the garden and while moving a brick to catch a giant slug, hundreds came out, i scare myself sometimes hahaha they are all over my wall too. I keep the garden clear of leaves etc but they do seem to like the leaf mulch ive put in the strawberry bed so i think i'll get rid of that
Oooh I wonder if anyone here has actually fried them with butter... I would have thought they might taste a bit muddy, though I have no intention of finding out
Sanjy67 I have tried using diatomous earth around my strawberry this year as the woodlice devoured last years crop. Crop rotation is said to help so I moved them last year, and cleared the area of old bits of wood and things to hide under too, fingers crossed. I am unsure if to use straw this year though as it may encourage them... decisions decisions (the straw is in the shed)
hi lms, what is diatomous earth in a nutshell, i have actually moved the strawberries this year in a new planter up higher as my dog ralph kept eating them all lol, have cleared most of the leaf mould out but i'll give it another go tomorrow, there is quite a lot of manure in there aswell so maybe they like that too .....huff
Sanjy. The woodlice do not have the strength of teeth to eat an undamaged strawberry. They are secondary problem. They like the dampness of the inside of the fruit, but they can only get in when something else has made a hole for them. I would be looking more for snails or slugs or blackbirds as the primary culprits. Deal with them and the woodlice will not be a worry.
A bit late to the party but I just wanted to add my two cents :
As others have said, woodlice are generally decomposers and rarely harm plants. I actually have pet woodlice (a complement to my pet snails), and when I attempted to grow little plants in the vivarium for them to chew on they completely ignored them!
I am not surprised that they would taste like shrimp as they are in fact crustaceans - relatives of shrimp and lobster. If my memory serves right they're the only group of land-dwelling crustaceans. This is in part why they love humidity (they still need it to live).
The main point that struck me was when you mentioned the eggs. I am no woodlice expert so I could be wrong, but all the species that I know of actually carry their eggs and young with them in a belly pouch. They stay with the mother until they're a bit grown up, and only then do they leave and start crawling about. Either you have some species of woodlice I don't know about, or those eggs are from something else.
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i was just going to write a post asking about them, as i have thousands it seems, i took a scoopful out of the strawberry bed last night as they are partial to strawberry fruits but not much else apart from dead stuff but they are everywhere it seems. i'm not really liking them being in the soil, under everything, they give me the heeby geebies. It's true they do taste like shrimps although i haven't eaten them i'm just going on what i have read. ive just been out in the garden and while moving a brick to catch a giant slug, hundreds came out, i scare myself sometimes hahaha they are all over my wall too. I keep the garden clear of leaves etc but they do seem to like the leaf mulch ive put in the strawberry bed so i think i'll get rid of that
Oooh I wonder if anyone here has actually fried them with butter... I would have thought they might taste a bit muddy, though I have no intention of finding out
Sanjy67 I have tried using diatomous earth around my strawberry this year as the woodlice devoured last years crop. Crop rotation is said to help so I moved them last year, and cleared the area of old bits of wood and things to hide under too, fingers crossed. I am unsure if to use straw this year though as it may encourage them... decisions decisions (the straw is in the shed)
hi lms, what is diatomous earth in a nutshell, i have actually moved the strawberries this year in a new planter up higher as my dog ralph kept eating them all lol, have cleared most of the leaf mould out but i'll give it another go tomorrow, there is quite a lot of manure in there aswell so maybe they like that too .....huff
It's a natural powder made from fossilised remains of diatoms, I spelt if wrong in that post but here's a link...
http://www.diatomretail.co.uk/products/diatompest-pest-grade-200g?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=googlepla&gclid=CMOgtKauuMUCFRQatAod4FgAkA
It's safe for pets and in fact the food grade is a natural dog wormer... oh but we must not breath it in!
thank you
Sanjy. The woodlice do not have the strength of teeth to eat an undamaged strawberry. They are secondary problem. They like the dampness of the inside of the fruit, but they can only get in when something else has made a hole for them. I would be looking more for snails or slugs or blackbirds as the primary culprits. Deal with them and the woodlice will not be a worry.
Hello,
A bit late to the party but I just wanted to add my two cents :
As others have said, woodlice are generally decomposers and rarely harm plants. I actually have pet woodlice (a complement to my pet snails), and when I attempted to grow little plants in the vivarium for them to chew on they completely ignored them!
I am not surprised that they would taste like shrimp as they are in fact crustaceans - relatives of shrimp and lobster. If my memory serves right they're the only group of land-dwelling crustaceans. This is in part why they love humidity (they still need it to live).
The main point that struck me was when you mentioned the eggs. I am no woodlice expert so I could be wrong, but all the species that I know of actually carry their eggs and young with them in a belly pouch. They stay with the mother until they're a bit grown up, and only then do they leave and start crawling about.
Either you have some species of woodlice I don't know about, or those eggs are from something else.