Dr. Earth Motherland soil and earwigs

[Superslam250]

Hey everyone, so I’m new to vegetable gardening and I’ve been trying to use Dr. Earth soils since I’m growing organically and all of their products are organic and non GMO. I first started out by using their vegetable planting mix, but haven’t had very good results. Any plants that I transplanted into that soil have been slow growing and several ended up dying, direct sowing into that soil produced no results either. I then tested the pH of the soil with both a soil probe and a soil sample test and both showed the soil to be highly alkaline, which is probably one of the main reasons why I haven’t had very good results with this soil.

I told my local garden store about this, and they said to try and do a 50/50 mix with Dr. Earth Acid Lovers soil to solve that issue. Doing that also didn’t work, the soil tests still came back as highly alkaline. I ended up buying a bag of their Pot of Gold and Motherland soils in order to see what one actually has the best pH, and it turns out the Motherland soil has the best pH rating at 5.5 the Pot of Gold soil also tested at highly alkaline. My question is, has anyone here used their Motherland soil for vegetable gardening? I think its probably the best since its easier to raise the pH of a more acidic soil than it is to lower it in an alkaline soil.

I also have been dealing with a very bad earwig infestation in my backyard, I have sprayed insecticide a few times and sprayed in all of the places where they have colonized in my yard, but yet their numbers don’t seem to be decreasing very significantly. I just found a huge colony of them living under one of my planter pots, I think the runoff from watering that pot attracted them. I bought a bottle of Dr. Earth insecticide that is designed to kill earwigs and sprayed that whole colony as soon as I found them. But I doubt they’re gone for good since nothing I seem to do gets rid of them permanently, do you guys have any ideas for a permanent solution to this infestation?

 

[NigelJ]

Are US earwigs different to UK ones? In the UK the common variety is Forficula auricularia: see here for info and pics https://www.uksafari.com/earwigs.htm In the UK they are not much of a problem certainly not forming colonies that need dousing with insecticide. I find them more an irritant than pest, damaging dahlia flowers and occasionally moving into sweet peppers. As they are nocturnal creatures a plantpot with some dry straw or shredded papers inside makes a safe daytime shelter for them. Contents of pot can be disposed of as desired; in my case onto compost heap which is is where I find most earwigs in the dry top layers.
Would be interested to know what and how much damage they are doing to your plants.

do you guys have any ideas for a permanent solution to this infestation?

Short of giving up gardening I doubt that there is a permanent solution to any garden problem.