The dreaded cabbage white

Hi all,

I've just planted (last week) a nice lot of various brassicas bought as plugs ready for this autumn and spring.

Already (literally a few days later) they are being laid on by cabbage whites and as you know the catapillers can strip a small plant in no time.

Is there any way of keeoping the butterlies off without having to resort to fine netting? My raied beds are in full view of the kitchen window and if there's any way I canavoijd having to look at netting etc it would be great.

Any suggestions?

 

Cabbage whites are worse this year than I can remember. I delayed netting my turnips and now the leaves have more hole than leaf. I've netted now but had to resort to insecticide.
My brassicas have been under insect netting since they were planted and are untouched by butterflies or aphids.
If you don't want to use the fine mesh white insect netting you could try the wider mesh, black butterfly netting which might not be so obtrusive.
I know some moths and butterflies can be caught using pheromone traps but I've not come across any for cabbage whites. Could could try "Googling" for some.

 

The best predators of cabbage whites are wasps. Yet every wasp nest found is immediately poisoned. Don't make sense do it?

 

Never realised that Hornbean. Do they kill the larvae or what?

 

Wasps are very ruthless and agile hunters and there are many different kinds of wasp. Tiny solitary wasps lay their eggs in caterpillars which then hatch and devour them from the inside to the outside leaving empty skins. Ichneumon flies do exactly the same. Other solitary wasps will grab caterpillars from off your cabbages, sting them and take them home as paralised living larders for their grubs. Ordinary wasps will take caterpillars back to the nests and butcher them for fresh meat for the wasp larvae which are strictly carnivorous. Wasps will grab cabbage white butterflies in mid air, sting them then bite off the wings before flying off with the bodies to the nests. Birds eat cabbage white larvae and adults too of course.

Everything depends on a healthy bio-diverse population in and around your garden or allotment. Once you use chemicals, you destroy the balance allowing who knows what to breed too succesfully.

 

I know of lots of people who spend a fortune on sprays to kill wasps, but I have now read that they will eat a lot of aphids,so are beneficial in the garden.
I got stung twice last year,the very first time as well, but it hasn't put me off of them,though I did knock down a small cocoon that was in our allotment shed because I didn't want to be stung later on by thousands of them

Kandy

 

Yes - wasps are definitely gardeners' friends not foes. They are meat eaters until the last grubs mature in August and then it's a free for all and they go for jam butties at picnics etc. Wasp nests never survive the winter when the whole colony dies. Only the new queens hibernate and they start new colonies in the spring. If you see a big paper nest in October you can be certain that it is empty. Take it home, cut it open and be amazed.

 

We found an old wasps nest in the bungalow we used to live in.It had fell down from the rafters,so we had a good look at it.
Such a masterpiece from such a tiny creature,amazing to see how perfectly it is made.
I have even heard the wasps rasping on the fence panels outside as they collect the materials to make the nests.

Kandy

 

I have an underground wasps nest on my allotment, I have protected it by giving it a little fence, so the kids and myself know where it is. They don't seem to be very interested in the caterpillars that have covered my entire broccoli stock!!

 

My cabbages have been destroy by the things will they recover?

 

I wouldn't mess about. If you want proper protection, use netting. I appreciate that you find it unsightly, so you have a choice

 

I bought netting and being a newbie the netting I bought they now get through,up grade needed I think.

 

Enviromesh

 

Scaffolders debris netting. Cheap (well, free if you blag it from a building site - they usually throw it away after each job).

http://kgarden.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/brassica-netting-against-cabbage-white-butterfly/

 

Wasps,spiders and hover flies seem to be keeping caterpillar and egg population down on my sprouts have only tiny pin prick holes on leaves and under inspection no caterpillar grubs only one or two



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