I was out weeding and deadheading (and sweating in our steam bath). I discovered earwigs in two of the jerusalem artichokes, nestled down amongst the leaf cluster at the growing tips. To me, one may be a fluke, but two is an infestation! So I immediately got rid of them (not to worry, no poisons etc, just clipped the growing tip off, earwig and all, and trashed it - the j'a's need to be cut back several times anyway to keep them from growing 10 feet tall).
That was my immediate non-thinking response, because the earwig is such a creepy looking creepy-crawly (magnified would make a great monster for a monster movie).
But then I went and looked them up and found this:
Earwigs are beneficial because they eat aphids, mites and insect eggs. They only do significant damage to plants when present in large numbers. http://grant-adams.wsu.edu/master_garde ... arwigs.pdf
I also saw that in the soil (and compost pile) they are detritovores, helping break down decaying organic matter.
Do you think I can rescue my earwigs from the garbage can and carry them to the compost pile?
You would think by now I've been doing this (and reading and writing and talking about it), for long enough that I would have gotten rid of the inital instinct of oooh, creepy-crawly, get rid of it!