North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Laura Confal" <laura@innercite.com>]

I live in the hot inland valley of Sacramento, and earwigs get inside my
peppers, cause damage to my apples and plums, eat the tops off of
seedling cucumbers (or anything I try to plant by seed).  They are a
very bad pest in my area.  The apples and plums mostly have little holes
that might harden off if the ants didn't use the opportunity to get in
there and make the earwig damage worse.  Plus of course all the
defacation of the earwigs around the holes that rot the fruit if the
ants don't get there.

I have plenty of other good insects that eat aphids (and btw, I've never
seen an earwig with an aphid in its mouth) to try and worry about
earwigs.
Laura 

>Earwigs, in the pacific northwest (mild winters), can
>defoliate the vegetable garden: including potatoes,
>chard, kale, turnips, squash and beans.  But you need
>to go out at night with a flashlight to see them at
>work.  I haven't checked the orchard at night; but
>this years the earwigs aren't bad anyway.

Good grief, Lisa, you must have an amazing number of earwigs down 
there in Ashland, which is rather odd, considering how hot and dry it 
is there in the summer.  I thought they only grew in the Pacific 
Northwest. (which is where I live - maybe my referral to an Atlantic 
source for our winter moths made you think that's where I live).