Topic: Kale like lace

[lottie lou]

Help - my kale leaves looks like lace curtains.  Clouds of whitefly rise when I lift the debris netting.  How do I remove these squatters please.

[squeezyjohn]

I've never worked out how to get rid of whitefly!  But I have noticed that they are almost always worse on netted brassicas than on ones out in the open ... so I think you have to choose the lesser of 2 evils unfortunately ... but they do make such a mess of the leaves.

[plotstoeat]

A cold, frosty spell is the best deterrent I find. Just keep pulling off the affected leaves and the tough lower leaves to encourage the tender ones at the top. The eggs on the underside are off-putting too.

[lezelle]

Hi Ya, I wonder if your kale has been ravaged by pigeons or caterpillars. They are the ones that usually do that type of damage and even under debris netting it amazes me how the cabbage white manages to get in. We suffer white fly badly as well and I have resorted to an organic spray but it knocked the fly down but they soon recovered. I have actually seen white fly wriggle though the netting. I grow all brassicas under debris netting this year and apart from white fly found it very good. I did notice that when using normal black netting there were more ladybirds on the crop and the kale seemed to be left alone as if the baddies preffered the softer options. Very annoying and frustrating but I am also at a loss of what to do. Maybe releasing some ladybird eggs under the netting would help? I may try that next year and get some from the nematode people. Any else tried them? Happy Gardening

[Vinlander]

I agree with lezelle - ideally you want a net that will let the little insect-eating birds in but keeps the pigeons out.

The crop may still get hit by some medium-sized omnivorous birds but keeping the pigeons out will stop 80-90% of the damage you'd get from no net at all.

Cheers.