The Crime and the Culprit: or Oops I thought those little white butterflies were so cute
by Skoalmintpouches
The Crime and the Culprit: or Oops I thought those little white butterflies were so cute
by Skoalmintpouches
11 Comments
Just finished picking dozens of these lil fatties off my broccoli! If you ever see those little white butterflies loitering and then discover little holes in the leaves DO NOT WAIT, get to work looking for these cabbage worms.
BT spray is your friend
Bummer, that sucks. Hopefully they bounce back.
I have learned that brassicas and greens need netting. You typically don’t need them to flower so pollinators aren’t needed.
there’s a reason they’re called cabbage butterflies!
I grow lots of brassicas on both spring a fall and put netting on as soon as I plant my starts. I also keep BT around for spot application as I find they can get hit when I take the netting off to weed.
I grow most of mine inground but I also have a 4×8 cedar raised bed that I built a hinged hoop house for easy access that I put netting over.
For hoops, 1/2″ PEX tubing is what I would recommend as it holds its easy to work with, shape and is fairly sturdy & inexpensive.
BtK and insect mesh. Now.
BT Spray. Had so much trouble last year with these bugs, I mixed up a gallon of BT spray as soon as I transplanted my brassicas outside a few weeks ago. Been spraying them consistently since I transplanted them, every week or two plus after rain.
Netting is your friend.
It’ll get worse if you don’t spray BT. Picking them off isn’t enough. They turned mine into full skeletons last year.
I’ve been able to manage mine by picking them off multiple times a day. I have two lizards that live in my garden who wait around for me when doing so. They think they’re tasty.