Whilst on lotty this morning I noticed that the first 4 or 5 plants in a row of purple sprouting broccoli looked a bit sparse on leaf ...I investigated and found these ..
Considering it is the 18th of November and we have had a few nights of frost recently I find this unusual ..I have been at this hobby quite a while and Don't think I have seen cabbage white caterpillars this late in the year... :o
(http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/4933/cwb4sb6.jpg)
(http://img345.imageshack.us/img345/6267/cwb2bt9.jpg)
Suffice to say out came the spray and they have been dealt with ..
So have a browse at yours . Looks like they still about .. :) cheers Jim
:o :o :o
there must be a naturewatch somewheres that would be interested in seeing these too
o hard luck tho growmore :-\
As you say - I thought that ours had gone by late September.
Guess they must be some tough northern type of caterpillar then ;D as the ones down here (south) disappeared in the slight frost we had first few days of November.
was doing a bit of tidying up in the front garden yesterday and I found a caterpillar too - was equally surprised ???
Growmore,
I have had the same thing, my sprouts have been raped by thes caterpillars(exactly the same type thats on on your broccoli), I Sprayed the plants also.
Am not joking they stripped the leafs in days, I only had a few sprout plants because din't have room for em and my family don't like em neither(i do)
Since spraying about 3 weeks ago I ant seen owt but av not been looking neither(the sprouts are that bad) I was gonna rip em out at ground, covered in this green stuff which I think is caterpillar crap??
Next year am gonna cover em with plastic netting,see if thi works.
Graham
thanks for the photo - now i know what to look for and i havent seen those!
What i have found on the brassicas, lettuce, swiss chard and chickory is a bright green caterpillar - no hairs, very smooth and easy to squidge! ANyone know what my caterpillars are?
yea...my garden thinks it's still summer. i've got aphids, black fly, caterpillars, beatles, lady birds, flies. and those swarms to whitefly are doing my head in. i can't do to the garden in the evening without breathing them in and then coughing like mad to spit them out. yuk.
even though it's bloody freezing out there lol. i got frost bite on my hands yesterday when i was washing some rocks in water.