Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: freefolk on September 06, 2017, 18:26
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On checking the pots containing my spring cabbage and over wintering broccoli today, I found some leaves had been eaten, and the culprit was a tiny green caterpillar, about 1 - 2cm long. Could this be winter moth? If not any ideas? I have removed them, and they don't seem to have taken a fancy to anything else as I also have carrots, spring onions and radish in the bed.
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They sound like Small White Butterfly caterpillars, which are solitary and eat like billy-oh. Quite different to those of Large White which are black and yellow spotted and move in packs.
Birds like them so if you see any more putting them in a small straight sided dish on the ground means robins or blackbirds eat them up pretty quickly
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Small whites. They are quite good at hiding and often lie along the leaf ribs unseen.
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Almost always the smaller cabbage whites, but last year I also suffered from the tiny diamond back moth. Their main hit is late Spring/early Summer a bit before the whites, but they do hang around all season. Their single green caterpillars are even smaller than the whites. The solution is the same whatever the source
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Almost always the smaller cabbage whites, but last year I also suffered from the tiny diamond back moth. Their main hit is late Spring/early Summer a bit before the whites, but they do hang around all season. Their single green caterpillars are even smaller than the whites. The solution is the same whatever the source
We had diamond back moths too last year, but not this as our plants were all under fine enough mesh to keep them out. The caterpillars are very tiny indeed, and typically turn leaves to lacework rather than the bigger munches of small whites