Help! Invasion of small white millipede things! Any ideas?

[kit-e-kate]

Hi All,

I wonder if anyone can help to identify (and suggest a control) for these little things?
I'm not having any luck finding anything about them in any of my books or on Google....

I've noticed them in the garden before and they eat into carrots/parsnips/potatoes and things like that.
This year I seem to be overrun with them, and am finding thousands of them all over the vegetable patches!
I enclose a photo taken earlier today, which shows a crowd of them, on the end of my trowel, making a meal of a runner bean seed! Grrr!

All help gratefully received!

Thanks, Kate

[Carltonian Man]

Hi Kit-E-Kate
They look like young soil centipedes (not that I'm any kind of expert), which are supposed to be carnivorous. Could they be eating a small slug and is it possible the ones you've found in carrots etc are lurking in holes created by slugs.

[Flo]

They could well be cut worms. There's no chemical available that works on them. The only answer to them is to leave them on the surface of the soil for garden birds to eat. Means regular cultivation and not leaving any rotting vegetation around.

They feed at night and usually attack weaker stuff. The only hope is that you have a lot of wild life that loves cut worms for food.

[george]

They are not cutworms.

They are definitely centipedes or millipedes. I can't tell from the picture, but centipedes have one pair of legs per segment and millipedes have two.

I can't offer any more help than that, sorry.

[chickenchargrill]

They are spotted snake millipedes. I'm on my phone so I'm struggling to search for how to get rid of them. But they will go straight for root veg and such, particularly during droughts.

[oldjerry]

Never seen these before,so I pressed a few keys: You've probably sussed this by now,but they seem worst in newly turned over grass(suggesting cultivation will eventually mean they are sorted by birds ,frogs etc),they like drought(like we've had loads of that in the last few years),and people recommend pitfall traps. Good luck with them,they look like hideous little b------s to me.

[Carltonian Man]

They are spotted snake millipedes. I'm on my phone so I'm struggling to search for how to get rid of them. But they will go straight for root veg and such, particularly during droughts.

Hats off to your superior knowledge CCG and good luck in getting rid of them K-E-K it looks like a right can of worms (or snakes)

[kit-e-kate]

Thank you all for your help!
Yes, I think they are spotted snake millipedes, thank you chickencharrgrill! I've done a bit more research on the subject, I wonder if I've actually brought this infestation on myself by digging in a lot of organic matter (from my compost heap) this winter. I don't think it was rotted down enough, so there must be plenty of food for them in the beds. Ah well, you live and learn...

So, I'm going to accept their help in breaking down all that stuff, plant my seedlings out later than ususal (they'd be out by now, but i've held off because of the beasties!) and try to protect the individual plants once they're in (probably with some sort of physical barrier, if i can find something thaat'll work).

Thanks once again to everyone for the help and advice, it's much appreciated.

Kate : )