Getting pillbugs out of a raised bed

Pillbugs, roly-polies, potato bugs, woodlice. Everyone knows the little gray armadillos that curl into a ball when you touch them. They're a lot less charming once they get into your garden and start eating the plants and vegetables you've worked so hard to grow.

What pillbugs actually are

They aren't insects at all. Pillbugs are crustaceans, closer kin to lobsters, crabs and shrimp than to anything else crawling around your garden. Their cousin the sowbug looks nearly identical but can't roll into a ball, and it gets into gardens in the same places for the same reasons.

A little bowl of melted butter or cocktail sauce probably won't do much to get rid of them. Surprisingly, a bottle of beer will.

Keeping them out

It's much easier to keep pillbugs out of a bed than to get them out once they've moved in. They're scavengers that live on dead and decaying plant matter, and they'll move on to live plants, fruit and vegetables once they're there. They want somewhere moist and shady to live.

So make a habit of clearing leaf litter and fallen fruit out of your beds, and keep ripening fruit from resting on damp soil. A strawberry lying on the ground overnight is exactly what they're looking for.

The tuna-can trap

1. Gather what you'll need. A bottle of beer (it doesn't have to be cold) and a few empty tuna cans, washed out. Beer is the one bait that's worked for me.

2. Place the cans. Find the part of the bed where the pillbugs are doing the damage. Dig a hole the size of a tuna can and set the can in it so the rim sits level with the soil. Think of it as a little in-ground pillbug pool.

3. Fill 'er up. Pour beer into each can until it's not quite full.

4. Lifeguard not on duty. That's it. Over the next few days, pillbugs in that part of the bed are drawn to the beer, fall in, and drown.

What you'll find

Empty the cans every few days and refill them with fresh beer until they stop catching anything. Then keep up with the leaf litter so they don't come back.