Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: Chilipepper on August 24, 2008, 18:19:54
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been to the lottie today and my cabbages and brussels are covered with caterpillars
have removed as many as I can , as im new to lotties anyone know anything to get rid of them?
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squish the little bleeders
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Yes, but I vote with Steve's solution.... :-X
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Sudden influx yesterday. Sprayed 'em with Derris. I don't think it's killed them all, but they were all coughing a lot.
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there is hundreds and i mean hundreds id be there all day every day for a week if i had to squish em all
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It's very depressing. My psbs have been reduced to skeletons. Yesterday I un-netted them, squished a lot of caterpillars (I had already sprayed them but they loved the spray), cut off the most infested leaves and threw them far away, and now that the netting is off I hope birds will eat them.
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One word - evil.....
My sprouting brocolli - are sprouting twigs - grrrr - i like butterflies and all but caterpillars dont eat MY veg!!!!!
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Chillipepper, be persistant. Keep squishing.......I have been doing that for days, I think Im winning now. Have a rummage when you first get there, give it an hour then have another go.
Its amazing how they just present themselves on top of the leaves, makes finding them loads easier. As long as they leave the growing tip alone your brassicas should come back ok.
They are a real menace this year
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u need sum chickens to eat them!
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I lost all my PSB to the B*st*rds and my cauliflowers look like shuttlecocks. I dug them up, put them on a piece of blue tarpaulin and performed the Mexican Hat Dance on them much to the amusement of my fellow allotmenteers. What is the answer? This is my 1st full season so new to this too.
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I didn't have any problems last year but I got back from my hols on saturday and went to the lottie to find all 8 rows of my brassicas stripped bare - the whole bed were just stalks :'(
Luckily I had some spare plants - 3 PSB and 1/2 a row of Savoy cabbage - which I'd put into a gap on the far side of the plot. These are damaged but the hearts look OK so hopefully they'll survive ??
They are also on my Kale, Swede and Turnip. I'm going down every day now to pick off any of the little blighters I can find and squishing them !! I don't think there's a lot else I can do.
All that hard work gone but I did harvest the first sweetcorn of the year for my lunch and my first ever maincrop potatos (desiree) for our sunday roast so that did cheer me up a bit :)
Darren
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I cover my brussels etc with environmesh and no problem - see below.
My PSB which goes in later I didn't cover and paying for it now with daily squishings. Its not the mess when you squish them - I wear gloves - but I hate the slight pop.
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my kale and psb have been decimated by caterpillars and even have them on my tomatoes eating them :o
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Everything's been shredded >:( >:( >:( :'( :'( :'( >:( >:( >:( :( :( :( :(
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The worse thing is we still have butterflys still flying around..... looking for more places to lay another batch >:(
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I ain't seen em any worse than this .There has been a real plague if them this year >:(
Squishing is fine IF you have loads of time and not a lot of brassicas..I couldn't control them this way .. So I use a spray on them ...Bug Clear seems to control them ok. Have decided mine are going under debris netting cloches next year ..
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Just got back from hols to find all my PSB and cauli's stripped totally bare - am I too late to get replacement plants? Looking at the other posts I had better get netting, spray and a machine gun post ready for next year!
Also all my potatoes 3 varieties Arran Victory King Ted and Desiree - luxuriant foliage when I left (some flowering some had just finished flowering)- 2 weeks later brown stalks, I know they are meant to die back but this seems v sudden, should I be worried?
Can you tell I am a newbie??
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Suzanne you should try humming loudly to yourself while squishing (or singing out loud) - that'll stop you hearing the pop..... ;D
twinkletoes
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It would seem that it is the whole country who is suffering this year with the little bleeders, i must admitt i have a plague of them too here in sussex and this is my 1st year it is a bit disheartening to find your eforts being eaten before you get a chance yourself, we will all learn a lesson from this and cover them next year i have already brought a fleece to cover them,
But an oldtimer allotmenter told me no matter how much you want to keep it organic sometimes its just worth spraying them with derris once in the evening on a still dry night and that will be it "job done" and you should see his 3 10 pole plots
Sean
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Plant nasturtiums - the caterpillers will eat them first.
A sacrificial crop which also attracts pollinators for other crops. I swear by 'em!
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A silly reminder, but it saves a lot of hassle if you deal with the EGGS - BEFORE any damage is done. Much less effort.
And gloves for squishing? You still have to wash the gloves, so why not just your hands??
PS Yes - if you've been on holiday,my sympathy!!
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My caterpillars do not like nastariums, they prefer to eat my sprouts and PSB. Could you have a word with them please. I like the advice about spraying. The ones I have netted look a bit better but think I have planted them too close together, were only tiny when planted but live and learn.
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I have nasturtiums - caterpillars eating those happily and I leave them too it as a bit of balance and diversity okay - just don't want them eating my crop.
I have squished eggs as well - both colonies and singles but you can't find everyone and the caterpillars grow big pretty quickly.
And gloves they are plastic coated and need no more than a wipe on the grass - my hands on the other hand take much longer to clean especially when stained by green gunk.
The lesson I have learn't this year - enviromesh works and next year not to be lazy and make sure i use it straight after my PSB is transplanted - thinking you can leave it a couple of days to save half an hour at the lottie is a false economy.
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I had masses of nasturtiums..but not anymore! disappointing as we like to eat them for salad...just stalks left!
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Which bits do you eat. Never eaten nasturiums before, just grow them for the pretty flowers and meant to stop the dreaded horse tail, which doesn't work.
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Use Bug Clear Gun! For Fruit and Veg. New product for 2008 and uses a fast acting NATURAL insecticide! Excellent for controlling caterpillars along with other pests.
visit : www.lovethegarden.com (http://www.lovethegarden.com)
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Direct link for you .......... http://www.lovethegarden.com/products/pestdisease/bugclearfvgun.html (http://www.lovethegarden.com/products/pestdisease/bugclearfvgun.html)
8)
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I eat the leaves but my boys were happily eating the flowers at the allotment because some of them were really hot and peppery. You can pickle the buds and use instead of capers.....I don't know if the seeds are nice to eat as well.
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It's not just your country over-run with them. We have never seen the tent caterpillars as bad as this year- they are even climbing up the porch screening and it is a second floor porch!
I decided not to knock them off figuring they might starve to death when they reach the roof.
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I noticed this year that the cabbage whites have laid their eggs on the mesh covering my brassica bed. How sneaky is that.
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Got back from 4 days away to find that the little blighters had munched their way through 12 PSB and 6 caulis. Couldn't bare to squish them so knocked them to the ground and chopped them in half. Will my plants recover? I am planning to go on a netting hunt this evening to cover up the worst of the damage but don't know if they'll recover. Any thoughts greatly appreciated :)
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I am a newbie devastated by the plague of caterpillars this year - have just removed most leaves from PSB and given loads of caterpilars and greens (both black and yellow and green slug-like caterpillars) to the chickens so someone's happy! In spite of going out most days and squishing (eggs and wriggly things), sometimes two or three times.
Also have nasturtiums devstated by caterpillars - all parts are edible including seeds - flowers particularly nice mashed into cream cheese, leaves mixed with lollo rosso and rocket salad. Chickens like these too :(
Somewhere on one of the boards it says green garden netting will not protect from cabbage white moths etc - is this so? I had planned to do this next year. Also sowed carrots in a belfast sink as someone my husband met in a shop doorway during a rainstorm said this works for him lol! Is this possible?
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We've lost 20 sprout plants and 18 kales. I think we have seven sprout plants left. :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
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HI all,
I am new to this forum - have had an allotment since last November and had a brill lot of veg this year HOWEVER caterpillars eating ALL my brussels and Cauliflowers... My dad told me that his Grandfather swore by putting dry soot around the greens on the plot - has anyone else heard of this as a solution ??
Sue
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look i know they can be destuctive but all these species are under threat from farmers who use chemicals to kill off all insects good or evil try to remove them and relocate them to a wild area of just cover your crops wilth nets i have discovered grasshoppers on my allotment and i will not use any kind of spray they all have a place in our lives as we havea place in affecting theirs and remember we would not be on this planet because of them
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I have just got back from a week's holiday to find my brassica bed covered with caterpillars. Not just a few but hundreds, I have never seen anything like it.
Our bed has been covered with netting for months and I thought it would be relatively safe.
Our plants are almost stripped so I am going to let them finish the job before composting what it left. I had nasturtiums planted nearby as an alternative for the butterflies but they are covered in caterpillars and stripped too!
I want to learn from this and prevent the same from happening next year. Is there any netting recommended for next year? I will need it about 3 metres wide.
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Mine are the same, first year growing and all gone, stripped bare.
Nature works in strange ways, one minute we are told butterflies are rare now, and then they come back with a bang... maybe the weather has just played a major part with all the rain in the last few years!!!.
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i was admiring me newly sprouting rows of mixed salad leaves when..should they be moving like that?..on closer inspection...caterpillars!! :o :o
must get these specs changed...
caulies like shuttlecocks!lolol!same here....
the trouble is when you remove the little tinkers by hand they are quite sweet and furry... :-\
i still squishes 'em tho!! >:( >:(
if its not one thing its another!
kitty
xx