My sprouts are under attack!

Hi all,

Got home yesterday to find my sprout plant in its 15l container was being chewed to death. Upon closer inspection I found alot of little green caterpillars under the leaves especially the new shoots. In a flash I got to work picking off as many of the little critters off the plant, and then doused the plant in soapy water.

I presume these are white butterfly lavae, which in fairness I had mixed feelings about killing anything that looks nice like white butterflies, however the question i am asking is what could i buy to protect myself and potentally my lettuce from pests. Does anybody know if i can buy a cage, not neccesarily a big cage that i could put over my pots to protect them?

Links would be nice.

I live in the uk

Thanks all

Steve

 

Hi Steve. To keep off the cabbage white you need netting IMO. Look here...

http://www.gardening-naturally.com/acatalog/Enviromesh.html

Cheers...freddy.

 

cabbage white caterpillars are yellow and black aren't they? Not that it helps much, I realise

 

I netted mine.. but the greenfly got bad cos the birds couldn't get to them..... you can't win

I pick off the catterpillars!

 

Hi,
As it said in this weeks Telegraph from a scientist, about 90% of "Organic crops" (his words) in the third world are destroyed by pests and diseases, as they do not use insectisides or fungicides as they are not able to buy or they are not available to the poorest farmers!

You are only wasting your time looking for other methods, use a spray and have done with it.

White butterflies can get through the finest mesh, certainly in my experience as I have netted mine, this also to try and keep the pigeons off, but the butterflies still fold their wings and get in, no problem!

Those who say pick them off, must never have very large plants, for the caterpillers get into every crevice in the leaves, miss even one and you are left with stems and stalks.

Cheers

 

"White butterflies can get through the finest mesh, certainly in my experience as I have netted mine, this also to try and keep the pigeons off, but the butterflies still fold their wings and get in, no problem!"

I have to disagree with that. I have got debris netting over mine and have had no problems - touch wood!. (Some pictures of how I constructed mine in My Blog). Only problem I do have is that the Sprouts are now tall enough to be pushing the netting up, and thus "reachable" from outside the netting.

For small plants (waiting to be planted out, and un-netted) I check every day, and just rub the eggs off. Most days none, some days they have loads of clumps of eggs.

 

I use plastic mesh netting from Homebase - about 1/4 inch I think; a few quid for a 20 x 3 metre box. Nothing fancy; a crude box made of cane draped with mesh over my PSB, and just the mesh itself draped over my swedes. Butterflies can fold their wings together but can't collapse them any further so have no chance of getting through. They do try (and sometimes succeed) to lay their eggs through the mesh on to th edge of plants so you still have to stay vigilant and squidge a few, but once you've suffered the full horror of cabbage white attack, a bit of effort is easy to justify. Cabbage whites lay enormous quantities of eggs which produce huge numbers of little caterpillars. These then get bigger by eating your brassicas very quickly! Whole plants can disappear overnight so it is essential to prepare yourself against them.

 

Did the un-named scientist also mention the damange caused to farmers by using unsafe chemicals and how often farm workers in the Developing World are forced to use pesticides without the neccessary protective gear... or the damage these chemicals can do to the environment and water courses, people's drinking water?

As a small scale producer, I don't want to put poisonous chemicals on my produce... and then feed it to the children.

 

"I use plastic mesh netting from Homebase - about 1/4 inch I think"

7mm is, I think, the size that the cabbage white butterfly can get through (not a very hole, is it? Must have narrow hips!!). 1/4" is just under 7 mm, so that sounds good.

I would have expected debris netting to exclude some light, but I've never had such big Brussels Sprout plants

 

Enviromesh has a mesh size of 1.35mm, I'd like to see a butterfly get through that !

 

"Enviromesh has a mesh size of 1.35mm, I'd like to see a butterfly get through that "

Indeed! But its quite dear compared to Debris netting

 

"I would have expected debris netting to exclude some light, but I've never had such big Brussels Sprout plants "

Big ? Or drawn ?

Mine too are rather large. I'm growing 'Cromwell' described as "Compact". Yeah.....right ! They have to be at least 3ft 6in, and still going ! As it is they've pushed up the mesh, so the butterflies are now getting their own back. I've had to order some more Enviromesh, 4.2m wide stuff, so that I can get them protected again. Along with 6 of those build-a-ball thingies, it came to over £30. On a lighter note, gonna have my first sprouts this weekend :thumb:
Cheers...freddy.

 

They are really good looking plants, I'll take a photo tomorrow if I remember and you can judge!

"gonna have my first sprouts this weekend"

No, no, NO!! That's all wrong! Like how the football season starts in the middle of the Summer ...

Sprouts are a Winter crop :thumb:

I'm all depressed now :(

 

Hi Kirsten

Have had a problem since I started growing brassicas, with white butterflies and netting.

I have netting about a quarter inch square and the butterflies pass in and out WITHOUT difficulty!

The first time I came across it, i saw some whites inside the mesh tent, I walked about 10 yards/metres to get mt trusty tennis racket, when I came back one was coming out through the mesh, they just fold their wings and squeeze out, and the others had gone too. The only way I can stop them is a double layer of the same mesh!

One of the men (retired) on the next plot besde mine works in a plant nursery, got himself a fancy frame and fine mesh netting for his brassicas this season, I think he gets stuff for free as he is quite liberal with some of the things he offers me.

Anyway he told me that this would keep them out,as it was guaranteed to stop them, quess what, some still manage to get in!

I have hit some off them with the tennis racket, they have passed straight through and flown on.
They are tough, make no mistake!

Cheers

 

They fly incessantly above my netting, the smell must drive them wild, but I haven't see one inside yet, and no signs of visitors either ... I think the debris netting mesh size is quite a bit smaller than 1.4" - and maybe 1/4" in the width of the square, not the diagonal, so I suppose it could let them through on-the-diagonal?