Land crustaceans can cause damage to veggies

Question: 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 of 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.

It is hard to determine what went wrong. It could be a number of things, but we generally use soap and water sprays about three times a week to keep the vegetables free of bugs as much as possible. Roly poly bugs, or pill bugs, usually 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. Pill bugs can’t fly or climb.

Bob Morris is a professor emeritus in horticulture with the University of Nevada and can be reached at extremehort@aol.com. Visit his blog at
xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com.