Earwigs

[leofff]

Any idea how to get rid of these. They don't eat anything, but they like to hang out in my lettuce, in clumps. And it's disgusting.

[rainbowgardener]

I don't know why you say they don't eat anything. In fact earwigs eat EVERYTHING, including aphids, flies and other insects, decaying plant and animal matter (helping to break it down), and also living plants including lettuce, celery, cauliflower and others.

A couple control methods are diatomaceous earth and traps. They are active at night and like to have a hiding place in the day time. A short piece of hose, rolled up newspaper, hollowed out squash, etc place on the ground near where you have seen them, should collect a bunch of them, which then can be dumped out into soapy water. Or an empty tuna can filled with tuna oil, bacon grease, etc and buried so that the lip is at ground level, should be a good trap for them.

[PunkRotten]

What help me is Diatomaceous Earth and going out at night and spraying them with soapy water.

[leofff]

What can I tell you? They never ate the lettuce. They just hung out in it and left earwig droppings everywhere. It was so disgusting that I didn't even plant lettuce last year.

I'll definitely try the diatomaceous earth. My and DE are old friends from my bed bug infestation in my university days.