Cabbage Whites

[Plotter]

Derris powder, so i'm told by others.

I believe derris has recently been withdrawn in the UK.

I have used enviromesh on brassica crops and never had a caterpillar on them. (Slugs snails and whitefly, yes, but no caterpillars. )

[red]

seems particularly bad for them this year. we have to keep up tyhe '[bug watch' which means inspecting and rubbing out eggs, or caterpillars. large whites and cabbage white. some yellow clusters and some single green eggs.

We dont net, as we have to slug pick too! - we got a good calabrese harvest in, as they were planted and produced very early, before the butterflies were out. will do that again. the sprouts caulis, PSB, woad, cabbages and red cabbage, all have to be inspected...

[MAdam Cholet]

Our nasturtiums look fantastic and the sprouts are like lace curtains. The sacrificial nasturtiums didn't work! Although while we were away a huge patch of nasturtiums at home were a sad bunch of stalks when we got back.

We have just taken to removing all the caterpillars by hand - although I did suffer alot of guilt killing them when I had done that. But, then again, when I looked at my sprouts and thought about what we will be missing the guilt faded away a bit.

[Millymollymandy]

This thread prompted me to go and have a caterpillar hunt on my brassicas - from a glance they didn't look like they'd been munched much but I did find quite a few fat green caterpillars and quite a lot of aphids too.

The good thing is that green caterpillars are fairly easy to spot on purple curly kale. My curly kale looks so lovely right now but I never dare eat it until a few good hard frosts because it's too hard to inspect all those curly frilly bits for slugs and caterpillars.

Talking of caterpillars I always grow dill as a food plant for the Swallowtail caterpillar but what do I find, the little dears are eating my carrots! I had to harvest some carrots yesterday taking care to put the caterpillars back on to new plants and leaving all the greens behind for them! (don't kill these caterpillars people!)