moogie
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CaterpillarsI got back from three weeks at the parents to find something has decimated my cabbages and spinach. I picked what spinach was left to freeze it, and when I was rincing it, loads of baby caterpillars came out. I know it can't be slugs doing it as there is copper tape all round and organic slug pellets everywhere. Could it be the caterpillars? And what can I do about it?
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Treacodactyl
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Cabbage whites certainly will strip a small cabbage plant in a day. Depending on the butterfly there can be a few big pale green caterpillars or lots of dark green and yellow ones. Not sure about the spinach.
The caterpillars can be picked off and squashed and if you look on the underside of the leaves little yellow eggs can be seen and rubbed off. Covering with fleece or fine netting would stop the butterflies laying in the first place, something that we must try next year.
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moogie
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Thats what I thought, so I put netting all over all my veg this year, but it has still happened 
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bernie-woman
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| moogie wrote: | | Thats what I thought, so I put netting all over all my veg this year, but it has still happened |
i was down at my friends allotment last week and watched the cabbage whites squeezing through really fine netting - I have also seen them getting out of my greenhouse via the tiniest gap between a glass pane and the metal
Little bu***rs
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judith
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| bernie wrote: | i was down at my friends allotment last week and watched the cabbage whites squeezing through really fine netting - I have also seen them getting out of my greenhouse via the tiniest gap between a glass pane and the metal
Little bu***rs |
They are that  but I did find that the netting helped this year. I put it up primarily to keep the chooks at bay, but I think it did make a difference with the cabbage whites.
It may also have helped that I left a couple of PSB plants standing, uncovered. They were absolutely smothered in caterpillars.
I hope you manage to salvage something from your brassica bed, Moogie.
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culpepper
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last time I was at the garden centre they had some white stuff you could use for cloches.It looked like interfacing. I wonder if that would stop them.
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