The Brassica Massacre

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Cabbage White Butterfly

Following on from yesterday's vegetable themed post, I am delivering another update from the garden. This time it hails from the Brussels sprouts' bed. You will recall that I treated my lofty plants to a foam party last month and, as promised, have been repeating the experience from time to time. I've also been giving them a wipe, assiduously removing the yellow eggs of  the cabbage white butterflies, laid in batches of thirty or more. 

 

The Aftermath

Unfortunately over the weekend vast armies of cabbage white caterpillars carried out a blatant onslaught creating laced leaves where once there were full leafed stalks. Their yellow, green and black bodies provide effective camouflage in the dark but by day were no match for my keen sight. I moved in with the soap but, when that proved inadequate, had to resort to plucking them off by hand. What I hadn't accounted for, however, were the undercover operatives, the caterpillars of the small white butterfly with skins that just happen to replicate the exact colour of a Brussels sprout leaf.

Cabbage White Caterpillar
 

Small White Caterpillar
 

It's been three days now and every two hours of daylight, I've been out there on sentry duty. I've enrolled some spiders and Mister E to assist but can only assume that the small birds I might have relied on to eat their fill, dislike their dinner tasting of soap.

The nasturtiums planted as decoys do not seem to be luring the butterflies away significantly and I'm now  moving pots of marigolds closer to the bed in the hope that they might repel them instead.

It all feels like some kind of strategic wargame being played out at the back of my home rather than on a table top. At stake are the tiny axillary buds which luckily and so far remain untouched.

Today, and in the event that I lose the next round, I took delivery of the organic gardener's nuclear deterrent: neem oil. I have no wish to be branded as the 'pillar killer but a gardener's got to do what a gardener's got to do to save and protect her crop.

A few months ago, I would never have been able to tell the difference between the two butterflies let alone their larvae. Now as battle command general, I have learnt for myself the merits of knowing my enemy. As I wrote yesterday, retirement is a great time for learning, with practical experience thrown in and no apprenticeship required.

 

 

Comments

Treaders said…
My curly kale is probably one of the few things that has done well this year. Tomatoes are getting there but as for the rest - I may as well feed it to the donkeys!
20 August 2020 at 20:08
Caree Risover said…
With rain now forecast for the next week, I have an awful feeling that the slugs are going to join in and help themselves to mine. It’s a lot simpler to buy from the greengrocer or supermarket isn’t it?
20 August 2020 at 22:25
B. Steele, British Columbia said…
Sorry to hear you had to go "nuclear" ... I had a similar experience in my backyard. I'm five years into retirement and I decided it was time to learn to grow potatoes. My wife gave me an old potato that had a bit of root coming out of it. I dutifully planted it next to my hedges. To my great surprise it soon grew a very large, leafy appendage. Somebody told me to "mound" it. I did my best. The leafy stuff grew and grew. One day I went to inspect my little treasure and, alas, the leafy bit was no more. Some sort of slug or other hungry insect apparently decided to devour the entire leafy area. I had bare stems and mound of dirt left. I dug up the dirt and was relieved to find about a dozen small potatoes had appeared. I will enjoy them with lots of butter and a steak.
20 August 2020 at 23:02
Caree Risover said…
It’s the speed at which it happens that is so disconcerting but I’m glad to know your crop was not only saved but tasty.
21 August 2020 at 08:13
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