Caterpillars everywhere!

[Marb67]

Well for the life of me I just cannot understand why at this time of year, no butterflies around for weeks, that my garden is covered in large black and yellow caterpillars eating all my nasturtiums (I harvest for salad) as well as my kales. We have had very cold, freezing periods in Cheshire as well as lots of garden birds so why are they still around ? Sparrows eat my greens but don;t seem to bother with these jucy pests. It's like nothing is the same anymore when everything had it's time and place.

[veggiechicken]

Are they the same caterpillars as http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...how_95128.html

[Marb67]

No, these are black and yellow. The others were either lime green (still a few of those around) or muddy grey.

[KevinM67]

Thanks for logging on..... my life was becoming unbearably happy beforehand.

[Zelenina]

The black and yellow ones are from the Large White butterfly whereas the green ones are from the Small White. Large Whites lay their eggs in big clusters so you can get a lot of caterpillars all at once from only one or two butterflies. They probably hatched a few weeks ago but you didn't see them until they got big. Black and yellow is usually a warning sign that something nasty will happen to creatures that try to eat them. In this case they probably taste horrible so the birds leave them alone. They'll probably crawl into various nooks to pupate very soon, then most likely they'll hibernate so they can be ready to lay more eggs to infest your plants again in the spring. You'd better pick them all off by hand before they do that, unless you want to spray them.

[Snoop Puss]

Hi Marb, I'm in the same boat. I'm doing what Zelenina recommends. It's the only way, really.

Good luck.

[Peteyd]

I had masses of caterpillars that somehow appeared inside my mesh enclosure for my Cavolo nero this year. I'm not sure how they managed to get in as it was completely enclosed from sowing with a single sheet of mesh.

There must have been thousands of the little fellas. They completely destroyed my crop within about half a day of discovering them.

Not content with destroying my Kale, they moved on and annihilated my Rose bushes too

[Penellype]

I found a load on the PSB at my friend's the other day - luckily they were still small and most of them were on a couple of the leaves, so I pulled those off and fed them to the chickens. I was surprised to see them so late, the nasturtiums at home haven't had any for about a month.

[Nicos]

If your nasturtiums have escaped the frosts, then so too will the caterpillar eggs.
I find my nasturtiums are the first plants in my garden to be lost to frost.

[Zelenina]

Gardening is a constant war between us and the other life-forms that share our planet and want a share of our veggies too. Just be thankful that you don't get Colorado Beetles or Tomato Russet Mites in the UK. Both of these I have battled with this year.

[Snoop Puss]

Those Russet Mites look awful, Zelenina!

[Zelenina]

They are awful (but not as awful as the blight which didn't arrive this year) and they're invisible to the naked eye, so it took me a long time to find out what was wrong. I kept researching nutrient and mineral deficiencies but nothing matched.

My Grushovka plants put up a great fight against them, and kept growing new shoots when the old ones died back, and they gave me quite a good crop. But in the later stages some of the toms stayed very small and developed a russeted surface and then split open.

So eventually I tried goggling "tomato russet" and there were pictures and descriptions of symptoms, exactly the same. I think they attacked my aubergines too, though not as severely. They are supposed to like peppers as well but mine seemed OK. And the spuds were already harvested.