Cabbage Worms

[Mackay]

I planted a lot of cabbage this year and now at harvest Im finding a lot of green worms that eat holes in the cabbage. Prior to this I saw many white butterflies over the garden and I think they are related.

The cabbage was salvageable, pull of enough leaves and its still seems good to store and make kraut out of.

short of going out there with a butterfly net, what can I do next year to prevent this?

thanks

 

[catjac1975]

The white moths are part of the life cycle of the cabbage looper. BT is a tried and true organic product that works very well.The looper must eat a leaf and they get sick and dies of starvation. It is like giving them the flu.Use it the minute you see any activity. We let our chickens into the garden after the growing season to eat any insects or larva that is in the soil or garden debris. It has reduced many troublesome insect populations. BT is good for all types of pests. corn borers tomato horn worms ect.

I planted a lot of cabbage this year and now at harvest Im finding a lot of green worms that eat holes in the cabbage. Prior to this I saw many white butterflies over the garden and I think they are related.

The cabbage was salvageable, pull of enough leaves and its still seems good to store and make kraut out of.

short of going out there with a butterfly net, what can I do next year to prevent this?

thanks

 

[lesa]

I had tons of the white moths this year, but hardly any worms. Not sure if it was the dry, hot weather or what. I don't worry about them. I soak my broccoli in salt water just in case a few are lurking in the heads, and I peel back the cabbage till I get to the uneaten leaves. I haven't seen them do too much damage in my garden.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It's a good idea to learn to recognize that Cabbage Moth Butterfly, the white one with the spots, and kill it if you can. That's a good organic way to prevent it from laying more eggs. I had enough practice this year that I got fairly good at knocking them down with my cap. A badmitton raquet would work better though. I can't argue with the BT approach either, but I don't use it.

I generally time a treatment with Sevin to when the cabbage just starts to head up. If I get the timing right, that usually knocks them back enough so they don't cause that much damage to the head of cabbage. Since I spray before the heads really start to form, I'm not that worried about the Sevin. The leaves I spray are not the ones I eat.

I saw a lot of the butterflies this year and did kill a bunch, but the worms really were not that bad on most of my cabbage. I only used the Sevin on the three plants that were pretty well eaten up when they started to head and did not use it on the other 9. They seemed to congregate on a few specific plants. Like Lesa said and like you saw, you can usually peel the heads back to get to the good stuff. I have had them get so bad and so deep in the head when I don't treat that the head is pretty well useless, but not this year.

Those worms did do a pretty severe job on my broccoli though. Not the first big heads I cut off, but the smaller ones that come back after you harvest the large heads. Even the salt water soak did not work. The chickens got a treat I'd prefer to have.

 

[seedcrazy]

I had HUNDREDS of the cabbage moths and they were drawn to my brocolli. I did have netting over my strawberries and a few stray kale plants were in there, so they'd get under that netting and WOOHOO easy to rub between my hands and kill them. Even soaking my broccoli in saltwater I still had some get stuck in there and when I boiled it a nice brown worm floated up cooked nicely (kinda turns your stomach or did mine). LOL I do like using diatomaceous earth on the kale, cabbage, broccoli, anything not blooming, it sure helped last year and this year on everything except the broccoli.

 

[desertlady]

resturaunt hair net might help.

 

[Mackay]

I've not heard of BT before and dont recall it at homedepot. Do nurseries generally carry it? ir do I have to purchase on line?
Yes, my kale had been hit hard too and I dont understand how diamacious earth would help. It would just fall off.

I thought about using a butterfly net but Id be spending all my day prancing around the garden with it. I had fantasies of turning a bunch of little kids loose with them and paying a nickel for each caught but it is clear that kids these days wouldnt do it for a nickel .

My mom use to use Sevin and and she swore that it wouldnt hurt us and I looked into it but I wont use it cause its made by Bayer, and I wont touch those filthy chemical producers and murderers' products.... one scandal after another around the world.

Now the hairnets sould like a good idea! I wonder if I could find any big enough.

 

[so lucky]

Mackay, if you have a farm bureau store or other type of farm/garden store, you can probably find the BT. One of the brand names is Dipel Dust. It also comes in a liquid, I think, but the dust works pretty well. They may be sold out for the season. I highly recommend it, for any type of soft skinned worm. I don't know how it would do for a fuzzy caterpillar. But for cabbage looper, and tomato horn worm, it is great.

 

[catjac1975]

Bacillus thuringiensis
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05556.html
Lowes has it. It is pretty common under different names. I disagree that sevin is safe. Pesticides are absorbed into the tissue of the plant.

 

[digitS']

I very nearly decided not to grow cabbage this year. Lots less variety - there is only the savoy out there & I'm trying it late, no early & late Dutch.

The problem for me is mostly aphids but anything that is down there in the cabbage leaves is so very hard to hit with the spray. I've found that spraying just as the plants are beginning to curl their leaves is a good time for getting rid of the cabbage worms. A week later, hit them again.

Bt is the spray that has worked for a good number of years. The story on Spinosad is that it will work also. That is what I used on the savoy this year.

The aphids are a problem. I don't know if Bt or Spinosad kills them. Soap will kill them but the spray can't reach those leaves & they can multiply in the hundreds. By the way, the yellow jackets are your friends with both of these pests. If they can get at the worms, they will carry them off.

Steve