Called pill bugs or roly-poly bugs, these tiny armored terrestrial crustaceans are typically innocuous in the garden as long as they can consume plenty of decaying matter. The problem arises when they don’t have dead leaves to feed upon and turn their attention to live-in plants. Let’s learn how to find and remove pill bugs before they harm the plants we like.

Pill Bugs: The clean up crew in the garden

Pill bugs look like miniature armadillos, fitting for being part of the Armadillidiidae Family. Even though we call them bugs, they are more closely related to lobsters than to any insect. As I mentioned, they usually focus on cleaning up the dead stuff in the garden. But lately, I’ve noticed them chewing on my zucchini seedling leaves this morning. They also chewed holes in my baby radishes.

Homeowner’s Guide to Pill Bugs and Sow Bugs

How to Eliminate Pill Bugs

Fortunately, multiple techniques can be used to reduce pill bug numbers so they don’t decimate young plants. We don’t need to use chemicals that could potentially harm beneficial insects.

Time for a Beer!

When I was probably 12, I asked Mom to buy me a beer. She did, but she knew I wasn’t going to drink it. I needed it to kill slugs. The same applies to the pill bugs. Pour about one-quarter of an inch of beer into a tuna fish can or some similar-sized dish at least an inch deep.

Dig a little hole about the size of the can or small bowl and bury it flush with the soil level. The sweet, smelling beer attracts the pill bugs. They will fall in but not be able to climb back out. Dump out the container each morning and replace the beer.

Stick It to Pill Bugs

Another convenient option is to create a sticky trap using duct tape and toilet paper or paper towel rolls. Like slugs and earwigs, pill bugs prefer to go into protected areas. When I was looking at the garden this morning, when I lifted a dead zucchini leaf, there were a couple of pill bugs underneath it. Creating the sticky trap gives them a place where they feel safe, but it really isn’t!

To make this a simple pill bug trap, cut the paper roll in half down the middle of the lengthways and tape small pieces of duct tape on the open bottom. Set this in the garden, and the pill bugs will crawl in, but they won’t be able to escape. Once there, a number of pill bugs in the trap, simply toss it in the trash and replace it with a new one.

Create Fruit Traps

As I mentioned, they were quickly hiding anything zucchini leaves, so another way to find them and get them out of your garden is to create a safe space for them. This can be done with slices of fruit, such as apple or oranges, or pieces of lettuce leaves covered with cardboard or a thin board. The fruit or the lettuce is used as bait to bring them to the area, keeping them in one space so you can dispose of them.

Reach for the Diatomaceous Earth

As always, diatomaceous earth is one of my favorite go-to remedies for so many pest issues. It is a powdered form of ancient, fossilized marine life with sharp edges on the microscopic level, which is fatal to soft, biting insects and detrimental to many others. With this in mind, we need to remember that it does not discriminate between pets that bother us in the garden and beneficial insects that use the same space. Even though it is natural, it can harm insects we would rather have around, so use this more as a last resort.

Sprinkle the diatomaceous earth around the plants the pill bugs are targeting. Be sure to wear eye protection and a mask so you don’t inhale it. Even though you can eat food-grade diatomaceous earth, you do not want to breathe it into your lungs. Refresh it every time you water or it rains.

Pill bugs are not huge issues in the garden, except when they arrive in large numbers, and there’s nothing dead for them to eat. If they don’t know enough to move on, and we need to utilize these methods to protect our plants.