Black worms in the soil in the garden. Mole cricket, scoop, cockchafer

One of the garden pests includes grasshoppers, also called millipedes. They live in the top layer of soil and feed on rotted organic matter. If there is a lack of food supply, arthropods gnaw at the root system of plants, which leads to their death, and also damage berries, low-lying fruits, and tubers. There are several ways to get rid of grasshoppers: agrotechnical measures, construction of traps, and the use of chemicals.

What are these white worms in an indoor flower?

Fly larvae;
Nematodes;
Enhythrea;
Fungus gnat larvae (sciarids);

Fly larvae, sciarids
up to 4 mm in length, white. Adult hatchlings have wings. They reproduce equally in moist and dry soil - they are more attracted to the environment in the room where they are comfortable.

Since most of the midges and worms are in indoor flowers, we will dry the soil mixture to kill the pests.

How to remove white worms from an indoor flower:

Stop watering the plant;
Fill in expanded clay, dry hydrogel, beads - it prevents stagnation of water and prevents the laying of larvae;
To catch and poison midges - spread sticky tape over the pot and spray the midges with dichlorvos (attention: ventilate the room before sleeping);
Mix wood ash + tobacco shavings into the soil;
Clean the sulfur from the match head;

The listed methods will help kill white worms in indoor flowers, but if there are too many of them, you will have to use chemicals.

How to treat flowers against white worms:

"Aktara";
"Bazudin";
"Agravertine";
"Fitoverm";
Anti-worm medications;

Soil treatment against white worms in flowers

The soil mixture is steamed or spilled with a solution of potassium permanganate before use. Try not to over-moisten the soil in the pot, lower the humidity and air temperature to a level comfortable for indoor flowers. Carry out insecticide prevention once a year.

Among vegetable garden pests, kiwis are distinguished by their slowness and secretive lifestyle. In small quantities, they are beneficial by processing rotting organic matter. Centipedes, together with earthworms, contribute to the formation of fertile humus. When they multiply en masse, they begin to feed on the roots and young shoots of agricultural crops. Millipedes damage strawberries and raspberries, gnaw potatoes, beets, and climb tomatoes. In order to prevent crop losses, you need to know how to get rid of grasshoppers in your dacha.

Meeting the Kiwis

- two-legged centipedes, mainly living on the forest floor. Another name for this family is diplopods. Each segment of the centipede's body (except the first three) has two pairs of limbs. There are about 8 thousand species of these animals in the world. The body is elongated, consists of many segments, more than 30 pieces. The body is completely enclosed in a protective shell. This structure makes the nooses invulnerable to mechanical stress and protects them from chemicals.

Interesting fact. The movement of diplopods begins with the forelimbs, then the remaining legs are connected. A kind of wave passes through the body.

The length of centipedes ranges from 2 to 30 cm. Giant individuals are found only in the tropical latitudes of Asia, Africa, and America. In temperate regions of Russia, millipedes of more modest sizes are found. Kivsyaks living in forests bring tangible benefits. Over the course of a year, they process a huge amount of rotting plant residues. In the middle zone, a common species is the gray noose. Its color is gray-steel, length 25-45 mm. Another common species is the sandy nodule. It is black in color and has two longitudinal orange stripes on its back.

Reproduction occurs by laying eggs. The male and female mate in warm weather (25-28 0) with high humidity. For laying, a nest is built from pieces of soil and excrement. The offspring are similar in appearance to adults, but differ in fewer body segments. During the growth process, they experience several molts. After each nod, several segments and pairs of legs are added.

Pest identification

Kivsyaki are two-paired centipedes. The family has about 8,000 species. Some representatives reach gigantic sizes - 35 cm in length. Such specimens are not found on the territory of the post-Soviet space. The most common species in temperate latitudes are gray and sandy nodule; the length of such individuals does not exceed 5 cm. You can see the pests in detail in the photo.

Description of nods:

gray or black color of the worm-shaped body, less often brown, gray, stripes of red and orange are possible;
the body is segmented, which makes it seem like the centipede is striped. The older the individual, the more segments it has;
on each segment there are 2 pairs of limbs;
the body is covered with a durable calcified cover that protects from mechanical and chemical influences;
gnawing type mouthparts;
They are active in the evening and at night; in cloudy times they can climb to the surface;
average life expectancy 5–7 years;
in the 3rd–4th year of life, individuals become sexually mature, fertilized females lay eggs in the soil, after which they hatch into larvae that are similar in appearance to their parents, but differ in a smaller number of segments; the young have only 3.

Black centipedes live in the soil, rarely going to a depth of more than 30 cm. They make numerous tunnels in the ground. They feed on wood, leaf, and grass litter. Like earthworms, they are beneficial because they accelerate the process of decomposition of organic residues and take part in enriching the soil with oxygen.

Nodding at home – to be afraid or not

Kivsyaki are vegetarians, so they prefer to live in nature, among vegetation. They settle under stones, in piles of tops, under the remains of building materials. In these places, moisture is retained longer, and centipedes are also protected from sunlight. There are times when nooks break into the house. This occurs during periods of high humidity when the number of invertebrates becomes enormous. They are looking for new territories to settle. Choose rooms in the house where there is water - kitchen, bathroom. They can scare impressionable owners by crawling along walls and ceilings.

Diplopods are active at night; the sun dries out their bodies. They do not bite and are not carriers of diseases and infections. When threatened, centipedes curl into a tight spiral. This is how they protect the abdomen. Odorous and poisonous secretions from holes on the side help scare off predators. They are absolutely harmless to people; just wash your hands with soap.

Neighborhood with centipedes does not make anyone happy. When they appear, the question becomes acute: how to get rid of clowns in the house? Unfortunately, the action of insecticides on them is not always effective. It is better to use baited traps. They are laid out in the evening; to attract centipedes, cut potatoes and wet rags are taken. In the morning, the nods are trapped, they are collected and destroyed. You can add Pochin along with the food bait. This is an insecticide in the form of granules recommended for the destruction of soil pests.

Centipedes on the window

Nourishing plants cause big trouble to lovers of indoor plants. There is a small amount of organic matter in the pot, so the millipedes that get there begin to eat the roots of the flower. How do diplopods get onto houseplants? A common option is with soil taken from a summer cottage. If the soil was not treated before planting, the pest will move from the garden to the apartment.

Advice. Treat the soil in at least the simplest way - pour boiling water on it.

Favorable conditions for the development of centipedes are created by pouring tea leaves into a pot. Untimely removal of fallen leaves and buds provokes the proliferation of the pest. An overgrown colony of centipedes eats all the dead organic matter and takes over the flowers themselves. The safest way to get rid of them is to place the pot in a bowl of water. The flies will float to the surface, all that remains is to collect and destroy them. If this method cannot be carried out due to the large size of the plant, then insecticides are used - “Aktofit”, “Karate Zeon”.

Worms in the garden - we breed them ourselves.

In order to saturate your garden plot with free soil disintegrants, you should start with the simplest thing - prepare a wooden box or dig a small square hole in the garden

Fill it with leaves, soil, waste paper and pour a small layer of slop on top of everything.
The whole thing should stand for a week so that the contents are thoroughly soaked.
Then place several earthworms on the surface: 2-3 will be enough to get “large offspring” in the future.
Water with settled or rain water from a watering can - tap water can kill small individuals.

Now you know how to breed worms in the garden, but there are a few more points that may be useful in this process:

It is advisable to loosen the compost about twice a week to saturate all layers with oxygen.
Monitor the health of your “pets”: if they are active and clean, have a pinkish tint, then everything is going as it should.
Otherwise, bait is required in the form of: tea leaves, potato peels, even bread crumbs will do. It is usually administered weekly, in small portions (in layers of a couple of centimeters).

To remove all the worms without using your hands, this may seem like a nasty process to some, let them starve for several days, then put some food somewhere - they will all get out of the processed vermicompost on their own.

Multi-legged pest in the garden

For gardeners, nooks in the country become a real disaster. They chew roots, weakening plants, and spoil berries and root crops. Usually a spotted or speckled noose lives in the garden. The centipede's body is white or beige, with red or orange spots on each segment. They mark the holes through which the protective secretion comes out. This species has a long, thin body and no eyes. The role of sensory organs is performed by the antennae. Females are longer and thicker than males, their body is 12-15 mm, and in males - 8-12 mm. Millipedes prefer to feed in the dark. The rest of the time they hide in shelters, and at high temperatures they burrow into the ground. On a cloudy, stormy day, the pest can be seen on the surface.

Attention. Due to their secretive existence, garden owners do not immediately realize the true culprit of plant damage.

Centipedes try to stay close to food sources; if there is a dung pile on the site, you will find them there. Their lifespan is 4-5 years, so development from larvae to adult is slow. The process takes 3 years. Females lay eggs near the feeding areas of the larvae - near strawberries and cucumbers. The offspring emerges in 2-4 weeks depending on weather conditions. The larvae will have to molt several times. Pests overwinter in the soil; adults and larvae enter diapause.

The harm of the nods

When the population of grasshoppers in the garden becomes numerous, arthropods begin to damage the roots and root crops of plants, the larvae eat rotten and whole fruits, making tunnels in them.

Damage to the root system by centipedes leads to inhibition and subsequent death of the plant. First, gray and black spots appear on it, gradually merging into a single whole, then the culture dies off.

Most often, people in the country or in the garden choose the following crops:

strawberries;
beets;
zucchini;
potato;
tomatoes;
melons;
flowers.

They are practically not found on onions and garlic. Only early onion shoots can be damaged if there is no other food source. Pests plague gardeners both in open ground and in greenhouses. In a private home you can choose indoor plants.

Many people wonder if centipedes are dangerous. Kivsyak is practically not dangerous for humans. If a creature feels aggression, it secretes a liquid with a specific odor of iodine. When it comes into contact with the skin, it provokes short-term itching and redness.

How to identify a pest

In cold, wet spring, when plants are growing slowly, millipedes chew cavities in their root systems. These areas darken, and if there is a large area of damage, the crop dries out. Damage to strawberries is indicative. Kivsyaki make depressions of various sizes in the soft berries. In some cases, larvae remain inside. Typically, centipedes prefer rotten vegetables and fruits, but they will also crawl onto fresh ones. Especially if they are located close to the ground. The following crops are at risk:

sugar beet;
zucchini;
potato;
carrot;
melon;
tomatoes.

Not only the spotted nodule, but also other species - gray, Crimean, sandy - may appear on the site. All of them have a segmented body with double pairs of limbs, different colors - from steel to black. Millipedes breed in open and closed ground. In the humid environment of a greenhouse, they reproduce at a high rate.

Attention. It is important to start destroying the pest in time; in a day they eat an amount of food that exceeds half their own weight.

Worms are nematode pests

A serious danger in the countryside is posed by nematodes - tiny worms that are pests of the garden. By infecting plants, they lead to the occurrence of nematode diseases. Plants infected with nematodes lag behind healthy ones in growth, and their leaves curl in warm weather. The root system produces few thin lateral branches, the plant darkens and looks depressed. Hardly visible harmful worms in the soil in the garden (photos and names are indicated) infect many plants.

Small pest worms in the garden gnaw the bases of stems, roots and leaves. It's difficult to fight them. Gray worms are resistant to biological products. To fight them, bait is prepared.

Bran - 1 kg.
Melissa - 0.1 g.
Votexit - 50 g.

Measures to combat the nodule

In the fight against centipedes, the main emphasis is on mechanical and agrotechnical methods of destruction. Due to its special repellent secretions, the pest has few natural enemies that could help control its numbers.

Baits for pests

If the nooses have multiplied in the garden, they are fought with the help of traps. There are several types of them:

Make artificial shelters for shade-loving diplopods and collect them by hand.
Lure them onto pieces of potatoes, carrots or other vegetables, collect and destroy them.
Dig shallow grooves up to 10 cm, and place empty cans at the bottom. When crawling over an obstacle, pests will fall inside the container.

This method requires consistency; the baits must be monitored and accumulated individuals must be removed in a timely manner.

Agrotechnical actions

To prevent the strawberries from damaging the strawberries, straw or mulch is poured onto the beds at the beginning of spring.
Pests love moisture, dryness is destructive for them, so loosening the top layer of soil is recommended.
If fruits damaged by the millipede are noticed, they are removed immediately.
Pests are collected manually from traps and beds in the evening.

Chemicals

The effect of chemicals on grasshoppers is less effective than on other pests. But there are still benefits from insecticides. They destroy young larvae whose shells have not yet hardened like those of adults. It is recommended to use new generation products – “Aktofit”, “Karate”. The introduction of chloride salts into the soil has a negative effect on centipedes. In the evening, when the pests emerge from their shelter, regular table salt - NaCL - is sprinkled.

Damage from geophiles and nodders in the garden

It should immediately be noted that it is difficult to call these insects the cause of all your troubles. In most cases, they do not cause any harm. If you take an interest in what they eat, you will find out that they prefer to eat rotting plants, with all their micronutrients. On the one hand, this is bad, because the grasshopper eats what the plants need, but on the other hand, there are not so many of them that it causes any harm to the plants. However, some negative factors can still be identified:

Sandy and gray nodule very rarely damages plant roots. Also sometimes eating strawberry fruits that are on the ground occurs. This occurs when soil moisture is low, when the insect cannot obtain enough moisture in its natural habitat. You need to understand that strawberry nods do not pose a danger to humans.
Geophiles were not observed at all in causing massive damage to plants. There are cases when beet roots were damaged by these insects, but these are isolated cases.

The question arises of how to deal with the nomads and geophiles, and is it worth starting such a war at all? Perhaps the presence of these inhabitants in the soil of your site is a good advantage? You probably won’t like an insect that looks like a centipede in appearance, but it doesn’t cause any harm.

Prevention of centipedes

To avoid having to fight centipedes, you should follow several rules:

Clean up the area, get rid of unnecessary things under which people live.
Harvest berries in a timely manner.
Carry out autumn digging; larvae and adult centipedes will die in the cold.
Do not leave weeds and tops in the garden; remove them after the final harvest.

Root pests of cultivated plants are the most insidious insects. Gardeners and vegetable gardeners cannot always notice or anticipate their appearance in a timely manner, and only by stunted growth can root damage be diagnosed.

By sucking the juice and boring through the rhizomes, insects deprive the plants of the opportunity to receive nutrients from the soil. Gradually, foliage and young shoots die off, plants wither and die.

Getting rid of multiplying pests is quite difficult. The easiest way to protect beds and flower beds is preventative treatment of the roots before planting.

Centipedes

Centipedes are natural orderlies of the garden and vegetable garden. However, their accumulation becomes a big problem.

The main diet of insects is the remains of rotting vegetation. But when there is a lack of food, they begin to become interested in various cultural plantings. For example, strawberries.

The safest way for humans to fight is to set up traps. Near the beds, holes are dug into which wire cages with carrots or potatoes are placed.

Large colonies of insects can be destroyed by treating the soil with a solution of Aktellika, Fitoverma or Aktary.

In strawberry and strawberry beds, treatment is carried out before the berries ripen.

Earthworms

Earthworms are the main soil formers that contribute to soil aeration and moisture.

They feed on plant remains, but pose some danger to immature garden and flower crops. Actively moving in the ground, worms can damage thin roots and cause plants to dry out. Indoor flowers can suffer the most from worms.

It is almost impossible to fight these insects in open ground. But it’s quite easy to protect indoor flowers from their effects. To do this, place the pot in a bowl of water for eight minutes. The worms begin to choke and crawl out on their own.

Larvae in compost. Difference between the larvae of the mole cricket and the larvae of the cockchafer and the larvae of the bronze beetle. What do mole cricket larvae look like? What larvae produce compost?

Many gardeners, shoveling compost, come across fat, white larvae; such larvae are also often found under mulch in garden beds. People, due to their natural disgust, fear or illiteracy, attribute everything to the harmfulness of these larvae, it happens that panic begins, and without understanding they make the most incredible assumptions and often exterminate everyone indiscriminately.

Last year, in an article, I talked about the larvae of the bronze beetle and showed the difference between the larvae of the bronze beetle and the larvae of the cockchafer. Detailed article “How to distinguish a bronze beetle larva from a cockchafer larva” -

At the end of the article, I promised subscribers to take a photo of the compost produced by the larvae of the bronze beetle. It's time to fulfill the promise.

To begin with, I will repeat myself and briefly tell new readers of the site what these “animals” are, and also tell you about my new experience.

Briefly about larvae in compost and under mulch. Bronze larvae, living in compost and under mulch, feed only on dead organic matter, that is, the mulch itself or the compost itself. By feeding on plant debris, they produce excellent quality compost for you in a compost heap, or they do the same thing, but in the garden, eating mulch. These larvae increase the fertility of YOUR EARTH.

Bronze beetle larva.

A mother bronze knows what her babies will need for nutrition, so she lays her eggs in compost (preferring grass and leaf compost) or in mulched beds.

Under the mulch you will find bronze larvae.

Very similar larvae that you will find in weeded beds without mulch are the larvae of the cockchafer or chafer.

Larva of the May beetle or beetle.

These larvae will not increase the fertility of your land; they will try to leave you without a harvest. These larvae eat plant roots. Therefore, we look at where we found the larvae.

The mother cockchafer will not dig into mulch or compost; she will lay her eggs where plant roots are accessible to her children. She will lay her eggs in a perfect (beautiful, weeded) garden. (By the way, an ideal garden is a relative concept.)

In such “beautiful” beds you will find the larva of the cockchafer.

If you are not a subscriber, but are reading this article, then I think that you have few or no moles. (A lot is a little, this is also a relative concept, depending on what you compare with).

This is understandable, because the mole eats everything in the ground that moves! If you decide to engage in natural farming and use “Active Mulch” - in order to obtain large and environmentally friendly harvests, then the number of moles you will have will grow exponentially, you must be prepared for this. After all, mulch is also processed by earthworms, and worms are the main mole “yummy”.

Earthworms, various larvae (mole cricket larvae included) are included in the mole’s diet, you don’t know which is worse!

Yes, what can I say. I myself didn’t know that such larvae existed while moles ruled our garden, but after a long war with moles, we found effective protection against moles -. Moles no longer bother us, but the number of bronco larvae is growing every year.

To avoid confusion, here is a photo of two larvae. Compare.

On the left is a cockchafer larva. On the right is a bronze larva.

The chafer larva differs from the bronze beetle by its large head, strong jaws, thinner waist, and this fashion model is long-legged.

But still, in the fall, you can find cockchafer larvae under the mulch! How did they get there? To answer this question, try to remember at what time you mulched the bed?! You waited for the potatoes to sprout, then you hilled them up, then you hilled them up again, and mulched them when the tops of the potatoes were already 40-50 cm. What month was it? And in what month does the mass flight of cockchafers begin?

Here is the answer to the question: while you were hilling the potatoes, the cockchafer managed to lay eggs, and the mulch that you put on top will not prevent its larvae from eating the tubers! What's the conclusion? Do not delay with mulching, especially since hilling up the sprouted potatoes

will not increase your yield!

The quality of the compost is not very visible in the photo; I filmed it in the video below.

Bronze larvae process organic matter and produce compost.

I want to say that two-thirds of this compost consists of apple litter. The apples were ours and our neighbors'. Of course, I didn’t dump a cubic meter of apples into one pile. I collected the fallow every other day, it turned out 4-6 buckets, laid them out in one to one and a half layers, and sprinkled them with sawdust (2-3 buckets), leaves, which I always prepare in the fall (10-15cm), earth (2 buckets), ash, various organic waste that neighbors throw into the forest. Also, waste apples after the production of apple juice were placed in a pile, and there was also a lot of them; more than 100 liters of juice were made. The pile rose and sank.

In the late autumn of 2015, when we were transferring the compost (“Compost in Winter”), we poured larvae into the middle of the “Apple Heap”; I wrote about this last year. The larvae survived the winter normally, and over the summer they ate all the apples. And in the fall of 2016, I took a photo of the compost and made a video.

I mainly use this compost for growing early tomato seedlings, containers for seedlings are 5-8 liters. “Tomato harvest on June 15 in the Moscow region.” — I grow seedlings not only for myself, but also for sale, upon request. If the compost remains, then for growing potatoes “100 kg of potatoes per 5 sq.m.” — .

If you find larvae of different sizes in the compost, this does not mean at all that the larvae of different beetles are in front of you. Bronzewort lays eggs in the compost all summer, and the larvae hatch from the eggs at different times, respectively, small larvae are “preschoolers”, and large ones are “high school students”. It wouldn’t even occur to us to call a chicken a sparrow because it’s small!

The photo shows that the bronze larvae are of different sizes.

The larvae live for about a year and a half, the further stage of development is the pupa, and from the pupa an adult beetle.

«Quick preparation of compost. Compost is made in one season by larvae" -

From Wikipedia:

“...The adult beetle feeds on the flowers of wild and cultivated plants, including fruit trees. Despite this, beetles are not capable of seriously harming gardening.” It is often written that the beetle eats the stamens of flowers and does not set fruit on the trees. This may be true, but I didn’t notice any harm from the beetles.

Mole crickets are very rare in our country; they are mostly brought in with manure. When people find larvae in compost or in a garden bed, they first assume that they are mole cricket larvae.

The mole cricket loves to live in compost, which is made from manure, so when buying manure, remember that along with the manure you can buy a mole cricket or its eggs, completely free of charge. In addition, the mole cricket has wings, and there is no way to insure your garden against her visits. Everyone knows what a bear looks like.

The mole cricket is very rare in our country, apparently our climate (Moscow region) is too cool for it, so to find a photo of the mole cricket larvae, I decided to use the Internet. To my surprise, many sites give completely incorrect information; the authors of the articles show photos of bronze beetle larvae and cockchafer larvae, while claiming that these are mole cricket larvae. Let's open Wikipedia:

“…. The female mole cricket makes a nest at a shallow depth in the ground, the dome-shaped arch of which usually rises somewhat above the surface of the earth - to ensure better heating of the masonry by the sun's rays.

There are hundreds of eggs in the clutch, from which larvae emerge with a body shape resembling an adult, only much lighter.

The larvae grow for several years, the nymphs have visible rudiments of wings...”

The larvae have a body shape similar to the adult!

And on many sites we are offered pictures in which the larvae resemble a thick, white worm!

Let's try to get to the bottom of the truth. Mole cricket eggs look like this:

And here is the owner of the nest herself. Photo artist Stanislav Shinkarenko shared this photo with us.

How often gardeners are in for an unpleasant surprise! We had just planted seedlings of tomatoes and cabbage, the seedlings had already begun to grow, cucumbers began to grow, and suddenly, here and there the plants withered and fell as if they had been cut down. What is the reason?

What benefits do centipedes bring to the site?

In fact, we can safely say that the land on your site is more alive than you can imagine. This is a home and fortress for a huge number of different insects and microorganisms. We don’t notice all this, but all the insects in the soil are needed to make it fertile. Both the white nod and the worm with antennae can bring undeniable benefits to the soil. In order to understand whether these insects are beneficial for your garden, you need to look at them in more detail:

Geophiles are predatory insects; the basis of their diet is invertebrate animals. They eat small crustaceans, insects, larvae, nematodes, and roundworms. It is noteworthy that they eat not only living inhabitants, but also everything that remains after their life activity. This is a real workshop for processing and cleaning the soil from what will no longer be used there. While moving, geophiles loosen the earth and saturate it with air.
Noiseweeds are very voracious insects, although you couldn’t tell by their appearance. Their main diet is rotten leaves and shoots of plants, mushrooms, and fallen fruits. The peculiarity is that this type of centipede needs calcium to form a strong shell. But they accumulate calcium not only in their bodies, but also in the soil. Since calcium helps retain moisture, this makes the soil more favorable for growing various crops. In addition to all this, kiwis process manure very well, which becomes an ideal fertilizer for plants.

When you look at the big picture, all insects in the soil can be beneficial to your yard. In our latitudes there are more than 100 types of different kiwis, each of which performs one or another job. The most noticeable impact is the consumption of dead leaves, especially from fruit trees. This allows you to saturate the soil with rich microelements, while significantly speeding up the process of leaf decomposition. If you have a compost pit with fallen leaves, then there are probably insects there that in most cases you simply do not notice.

If we compare all the pros and cons, then we can confirm the fact that it is not worth fighting centipedes on the site. They do more good than harm. In the form of damage, this could be a few plants that will not produce their maximum yield this season. The benefit is that the overall fertility of the soil increases, which already increases the yield of all crops grown. Of course, if there are an extremely large number of centipedes, this could become a problem, but this happens very rarely; a small number of such insects live in one area.

If you see a centipede while working with the soil, you should not kill it immediately. You didn’t like her appearance, which is understandable; the insect looks quite scary. But all these insects work for the good, reducing the amount of microelements and pests dangerous to plants. Moreover, visual contact with the centipede will probably be short-lived; after a few seconds it will disappear into the soil.

Fighting mole crickets in the garden

The first and most famous garden pest is the mole cricket - a fairly large insect that leads a mainly underground lifestyle.

Since I started gardening, I have almost thoroughly studied the habits of the common mole cricket. At first I didn’t want to believe that she was on my site, then there was a phase of despair and wild horror, from the fact that I met her nose to nose and was finally convinced that it was she—a bear! Now - I just know that it exists, and let it live, you can’t argue with nature. The disappearance of one species entails other, sometimes unpredictable consequences.

The common mole cricket is widespread throughout the European part of Russia. The natural habitats of the mole cricket are the banks of rivers and streams. She prefers moist, loose soil. In her gardens she prefers planting cabbage, compost heaps, and manure, especially horse manure.

Its presence on the site can be determined not only by cut plants. At the beginning of summer, especially after watering in the morning, winding, dug-up areas of soil are clearly visible in the beds. These are the surface passages of the mole cricket. It is difficult to predict where it will crawl tomorrow. Running after her with a ladle of some kind of nasty stuff doesn’t bring any pleasure either. Some gardeners sit at night, watch when the mole cricket comes to the surface in order to destroy it. Some gardeners buried three-liter jars of water in the path of mole crickets so that they would fall in and not be able to get out. I remember how I laughed when I read somewhere that you can fight mole crickets if you drive aspen stakes throughout the garden.

I tried planting seedlings in cut-off plastic bottles. But she refused it. The tomatoes have grown well, but the cabbage grew very poorly in these cut-off bottles. While weeding, slightly touching the edges of the bottles, my cabbages flew out of the ground. There was no way they could catch the edge of the root in the ground.

In order not to increase the number of mole crickets in a particular area, I advise you to get rid of boards and logs - buried or lying on the ground. Also make sure that the water containers do not leak. Try not to bring manure from unknown places where there may be a concentration of mole crickets. If you just need to purchase manure or humus, try not to put it on the ground, isolate it from the ground so that the mole crickets do not crawl around the garden. Prepare a special container. In such a container you can spill all the humus or manure with pest control drugs. Also isolate compost heaps from contact with the ground.

What to do with the beds where the mole cricket operates? At the beginning of summer, in June, the mole cricket looks for a warm, sunny place to build a nest and lay eggs. The nest protrudes somewhat from the ground and resembles an ordinary hummock. The only unusual thing is that nothing grows next to this hummock within a radius of 20-30 cm. It is around its nest that the mole cricket cuts down all the grass or other plants so that they do not shade the nest. The mole cricket often comes to its nest and checks if everything is in order. Having destroyed the hummock-nest, you can see many gray-yellow eggs slightly smaller than a pea. This is the clutch of a mole cricket. This is exactly how my meeting with the mole cricket happened: I was looking at a clutch of eggs, and she also came to visit them. My legs were paralyzed from horror and numbness, and when she saw me, she quietly began to back away, covering herself with her claw. How scary she is! The only thing I want is to never meet her again. So, the conclusion suggests itself: loosen the soil more often and do not neglect deep autumn and spring digging.

One of the effective ways to combat mole crickets is the insecticide preparations Medvetox, Thunder or another drug designed to combat mole crickets and available for sale in your city. It must be used according to the instructions. I’ll tell you right away that it helps. In addition, when planting seedlings, I add crushed eggshells to the holes, which I collect all year.

I also read that you can sprinkle sawdust around the perimeter of the bed and deepen it a little. But I haven’t done it myself, so I can’t recommend it.

My helpers in the fight against mole crickets are cats. As soon as we started living with two cats and a female cat, I noticed that all my plants stayed in place. In the summer, my cats generally catch everything that moves: flies, butterflies, grasshoppers, crickets, caterpillars.

And if the mole cricket moves to the trees, good luck: let it continue to roam the expanses of its native area, improving soil aeration.

If the mole cricket really annoys you, then in the fall, when everything is cleared from the garden and frosts have already begun on the soil, dig several holes up to 50 cm deep, cover it with film and put manure in it. These are traps into which mole crickets must crawl for the winter. Check the holes every morning, at this time mole crickets are slow and easy to destroy. In my opinion, this is the most realistic way to fight mole crickets.

The benefits and harms of earthworms

Charles Darwin was one of the first to point out the role of earthworms in soil formation in 1882.

He even suggested that they have intelligence, noting that pulling a piece of leaf into a hole occurs from the narrow end, and a bunch of pine needles pulls at the base to make it easier to get into. He observed them almost all his life and wrote the scientific work “The Formation of the Vegetative Layer of the Earth by the Activity of Earthworms and Observations on Their Lifestyle” (1881).

Benefit

Earthworms are also called soil formers, because by making tunnels in the ground, they loosen the soil and contribute to its saturation with oxygen. In wet weather, you can see how the worms crawl to the surface, and in dry weather they go up to half a meter deep and fall into an unconscious state.

Over the course of a year, worms process a large amount of soil, equal to almost their weight, several kilograms of fallen leaves and other parts of plants. In one day, the worm easily processes about 25 g of soil. The soil is plowed by worms and becomes more fertile. Number of worms per 1 sq. m reaches up to a hundred specimens, and in wet meadows up to six hundred. Among the beneficial qualities of the life of worms in the garden include:

loosening the top layer of soil, promotes its aeration;
restoration of soil fertility;
saturation of the soil with oxygen, and this has a positive effect on plant nutrition;
enriching the soil with useful microelements - phosphorus, calcium, magnesium;
maintaining the growth of bacterial populations;
regulation of soil acidity.

During the digestion of plant residues, humic substances are formed in the intestines of worms, which, entering the soil, slow down the leaching of mobile compounds from it and prevent water and wind erosion of the soil.

Harm

Among gardeners, there is an opinion about the dangers of worms, which allegedly gnaw the roots of young plants. However, this is nothing more than a myth. There is no need to be afraid of worms; they cannot cause harm simply because of their feeding habits.

But they still cause harm. Earthworms are intermediate hosts of dangerous parasites for pigs - metastrogylids. The infestation causes respiratory distress in pigs and poisons them with toxic products of their vital activity. Animals that catch such an invasion die. They are also intermediate hosts of parasites - syngamids in birds, especially in domestic birds - chickens, turkeys, ducks.

Louis Pasteur, a French microbiologist and chemist, once pointed out the possibility of anthrax spores being spread by earthworms from the burial grounds of animals that died from this disease. However, he was wrong and this has already been recognized, since this is simply impossible due to the biological characteristics of worms.