Q. My biggest question is how to rid my raised vegetable beds of the abundance of bugs of all sorts who have made their home there over the past couple years. I love the little “roly poly” bugs but have a thousand of them in my gardens causing problems. Is there an organic pesticide that you would recommend? I have just begun planting fall veggies and would really like to catch this problem now.
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| Picture of pillbug from Texas A and M |
A. It is hard to determine what went wrong with your garden this past year. It could be a number of things but we generally use soap and water sprays about three times a week just to keep the vegetables free of bugs as much as possible.
Roly-polys generally like decaying debris on the soil surface so keeping the soil clean and free of debris is always suggested to keep their numbers down. Not letting soft fruits touch the ground helps and keeping them trellised. Roly polys can’t fly or climb so elevating them off the ground helps.