Cabbage White Catterpillars

First year of veg growing ... had a superb crop of Cabbage, Broccoli & Cauliflower.
Had clouds of cabbage White Butterflies over my garden, and huge infestation of caterpillars.

At start of Sept went away for 10 day came back and cauli & cabbage crops lost 100% ... all what was left were stalks. and presumably some very fat caterpillars.

How can I stop this next year ? ....... don't really want to go insecticide .. as part reason for veg growing is to avoid the chemicals.

I also don't want to turn my garden into looking like a waste tip with netting, mesh etc. ...... unless I really have to.

Advice form those that know ?

 

It would make garden look like a tip though ! .... looks like discarded underlay !

We were squishing well today ... still loads of caterpillars about.

 

I can vouch for Johns netting as I saw his brassicas yesterday (oo err mrs :hehe And theres not a hole in em.:gnthb:

Wish I'd used some, mine are just stumps with net curtains on em.

Dont rip em out yet Sargan. The butterflys will go soon & the cabbage family will go to seed in the spring, so you can use them as broccoli.

 

I think it is netting or nothing if you have too many to patrol. I had 100 brassicas last year and there are not enough hours of daylight to inspect all those. I did end up using a plant based insecticide and two sprays seemed to work. You used to be able to get a bacterium to spray - it only affected caterpillars - it wasn't chemical, it was germ warfare. But You cannot get it now unless you buy big quantities as a professional grower - I think it caused an allergic skin reaction in someone.

 

It's been a dreadful year for caterpillars for me.

I don't like netting either - looks horrible, and if you only grow a few it's too much of a faff.

I spray with systemic pesticide - but it wears off and is pretty nasty stuff to use on your leafy greens.

Egg patrol is the best answer, I think.

 

I hate to see a garden look like a waste tip. It is so easy to hide the bin, create enough storage for tools etc., but I must say I would rather see netting in the garden than overpackaged veg in the supermarket!
It seems almost impossible to keep on top of squishing caterpillars right through the whole season...I have tried often. If I stay focused through the gooseberry sawfly larvae till I've picked the fruit I'm pleased. By this time of year the cabbage whites have nearly always ground me down when I haven't netted!
Instead of seeing the netting as an eyesore, embrace it! Make Victorian style fruit and veg cages using woven willow...or fancy metal if you have the funds! You can carefully sew the netting into bigger widths. Or go for a rustic look and make a little chicken wire enclosure with a little gate and set it out like a little pottager garden with wigwams of runner beans and sweet peas to see as well as the netted rows of brassicas. A little path of woodchips or cobbles and a couple of trugs dotted about....this looks nothing like a waste tip :gnthb:

 

I have twice tried to grow brassicas. Both times the plants grew strongly, looked healthy. They were just about ready to start picking them when the cabbage whites got at them. First time it was a total loss, they ate everything in sight.

Second time Mrs Chopper used some plastic electrical conduit to make hoops to go over the rows. A previous visit to the scrap score and I was the proud owner of a large roll of white curtain netting. We put the hoops securely into the soil and stretched the netting over them. We secured the sides with lumps of turf. I thought NOTHING is going to get in there now.

Little buggers had the whole lot. We hardly saw any butterflies in our garden but as soon as we did, we covered all the plants. Mrs Chopper made several patrols and cleared loads of caterpillars.

For a novice gardener trying to do what I think is the right thing by my garden, this was very depressing and frustrating. I really do not want to go the chemical route. We only had short rows of plants, so it didn't take long to check them all, which we did often.

I hate to give up on anything. So this coming year I am going to make sure that ALL of my brassicas are covered as soon as they are planted out. I am thinking of buying some of those plastic cloches to protect the plants.

Anybody got any ideas what I have done wrong?

Chopper.

 

Use Enviromesh, it keeps all insect pests off.:gnthb:

 

looking in Marshalls catalougue they show a couple of options ...
# telescopic tunnels
# tunnel kits you add the flexy pipe to make them up

anybidy know of any links to diy projects ..... perhapos I could make something over winter.

 

Do earwigs do any damage? The leaves of my sprout plants have big jagged holes in them, there are more holes than leaves! I have picked off caterpillars and just don't think they are responsible for all that damage, ( could be snails I suppose) but I have noticed a lot of earwigs in the centre leaves too.

 

Hi What you need is Nemasys Grow Your Own, it's a system that is completely natural and organic. It uses biological nematodes that occur naturally in our landscapes that will feed on the catapiller grubs and will eat them until they are all gone, Nemasys Grow Your Own is good for a number of garden pests such as carrot root fly, cabbage root fly, leatherjackets, cutworms, onion fly, ants, sciarid fly, caterpillars, gooseberry sawfly, thrips, and codling moth. Try it, it's not much money, just google it there are an number of websites that sell it...including my own ;-)

Louise