The European earwig can be both a beneficial garden insect and a pest. Although earwigs contribute to creating good soil by feeding on detritus and also consume pests like aphids and mites, often their populations explode and they start consuming living plant parts, as any gardener can attest. They can be a tough pest to deal with organically, but now Monterey Lawn and Garden Products has introduced a garden-safe organic product called Sluggo Plus: Bait granules that combine iron phosphate and spinosad. Most gardeners are familiar with Sluggo, which has long been an organic standby for slug control in the Hosta garden. Sluggo contains iron phosphate, which occurs naturally in the soil and is used in fertilizers. The Plus part of the new product is the naturally occurring, soil-dwelling bacterium spinosad. The USDA's National Organics Program has certified Sluggo Plus for use in organic gardens. After eating the bait, pests stop feeding and die within a week, and any uneaten granules biodegrade into your garden soil. Sluggo Plus is effective on sowbugs, pillbugs, earwigs, cutworms, snails and slugs.Combine the use of safe organic controls with natural controls, like growing alyssum, dill or fennel to attract tachinid flies, which are natural predators of earwigs.