Things that have been attacking my veg.

[Davidworcestershire]

This is my first year on the allotment. Clearing made it a little late start. My brassica's have been hit and miss. Cauliflower ok but some had slug and caterpillar damage. Cabbages were and are fine but the red cabbage had mixed quality. The purple sprouting is still to put in a later appearance. Sprouts are another thing altogether. Firm ground on both patches, fertilizer applied but they were hit by caterpillars and just about everything else. Whitefly was rampant right across everything and all allotments, also black mould appeared on leafs. My sprout plants have produced small or open leaf sprouts. I will still pick but will have to call them baby sprouts. How on earth do the commercial growers manage to get over these problems with their vast vegetable acreage? I will grow sprouts and cauliflower again this next season but can you give me a few pointers for better crops.

[Jimmy]

I have to net everything, carpet of slug pellets + ground cover.
Jimmy

[bikermike]

This is my first year on the allotment. Clearing made it a little late start. My brassica's have been hit and miss. Cauliflower ok but some had slug and caterpillar damage. Cabbages were and are fine but the red cabbage had mixed quality. The purple sprouting is still to put in a later appearance. Sprouts are another thing altogether. Firm ground on both patches, fertilizer applied but they were hit by caterpillars and just about everything else. Whitefly was rampant right across everything and all allotments, also black mould appeared on leafs. My sprout plants have produced small or open leaf sprouts. I will still pick but will have to call them baby sprouts. How on earth do the commercial growers manage to get over these problems with their vast vegetable acreage? I will grow sprouts and cauliflower again this next season but can you give me a few pointers for better crops.

I use insect mesh, it's not perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better. Don't forget to allow height for them to grow. I put it over them when planting out - don't let pests get a toehold.

Also, rotate your crops so whatever was there last year doesn't get an easy ride.
Encourage natural predators (birds, ladybirds, frogs etc)

[Jungle Jane]

Whitefly don't seem too keen on calendula,Ive planted it in the sprouts gaps,mind you,maybe I don't have many whitefly because the caterpillars have taken all the space? I'm netting next year,got some cheap net curtain off cuts with tiny holes in so moths can't get in,one will though.

[Dynamo]

I had loads of whitefly last year but this year I hardly saw any this year apart from a few when I took the lids off my compost daleks. The only thing different this year as far as I can think was that I didn't grow any sprouts. I grew quite a few white cabbages but they were untouched by them.

[Penellype]

Hmm, pests. Not really been too bad this year, apart from one notable exception (tortrix moth). I've had:
Greenfly, blackfly, cabbage aphid (especially beans, nasturtiums, chinese celery, carrots, fennel, currants, apple tree.....)
Ants farming aphids (especially apple tree)
Wasps eating aphid honeydew (blackcurrant bush)
Cabbage white caterpillars (broccoli - removed net too early, nasturtiums)
Tomato moth caterpillars (tomatoes in greenhouse)
Cabbage moth caterpillars (cabbage)
Cabbage worms (cabbage - not an official pest as I can't find any documentation about it, but earthworm-like worms that get inside cabbage hearts and eat them causing them to rot)
Cabbage root fly (turnips)
Whitefly (brassicas)
Carrot fly (carrots - netted)
Tortrix moth (everything, including fruit, vegetables, onions, leeks, tomatoes, flowers and trees, whether netted or not)
Dot moth caterpillars (beetroot, carrot foliage)
Leaf miner (beetroot, leeks, lettuce)
Codling moth (apples)
Fruit fly (strawberries)
Vine weevil (strawberries)
Slugs and snails (most things)

Notable absentee (expected to return) - gooseberry sawfly.

[lolie]

I'm having problems with whitefly this year. I've just been spraying every few days but when I replant the beds I will net them.

Had a problem a month back with white cabbage butterflies but they seem to have disappeared. I just picked them off.

Surprisingly, I've had no aphids yet - possibly because I laid ant baits very early.

I will probably by some agricultural mesh before I plant out the new bed I'm getting for Christmas. I have plenty of fine net curtains in the meantime.

Commercial growing is a whole different ball game. Some products available to farmers can only be sourced in large quantities from agricultural suppliers.

Allotments fascinate me. My ability to control problems in my garden depends largely on me being in it daily. Going away for a couple of days carries the risk of coming back to destroyed plants, so I marvel that people with allotments are able to keep a much larger area under control even if they're only able to spend time there once a week.

[geepee]

From my gardening experience....At some point in time ,Any thing and Every thing has attacked Every thing and Any thing I've attempted to grow ...!!
Fortunately by looking on here regularly I've followed advice and been able to avoid / minimize the damage.....some great advice to be had here.....Some wise ,some otherwise ???.... As the old saying goes ....'A problem shared ,is a problem solved' .(or is it halved) ..?? ..

[geepee]

.How on earth do the commercial growers manage to get over these problems with their vast vegetable acreage? .

[geepee]

Hi and welcome the Vine,
As a Retired Farmer ,I can enlighten you as to why Commercial grown crops differ from Garden grown.
Simply , farmers and commercial growers have access to products that we as mere gardeners do not, (to enable this access you need to be a registered farmer/grower,and be in possession of a 'Holding number' from DEFRA,)
This will enable you to buy Commercial products , ie Herbicide,Fungicide .Pesticide and Nitrogen fertilizer.
We are all aware , I'm sure,of the possible risks and implications of these products falling into 'Wrong hands'.
I can also add that if it were not for these products being available to Bona Fida growers, we would not in the UK be producing sufficient crops/food to support our needs.
Imagine the whole of UK relying on the yield of Allotment scale...??? ( NO DISRESPECT TO ALLOTMENTEERS )

[Penellype]

geepee has it exactly right - the commercial growers have access to various chemical assistants. Quite how commercial organic farmers manage is beyond me.

My main weapon is nets, which usually work, although I have had a few problems this year with cabbage root fly, carrot fly and moths getting into the nets somehow. However the numbers of these were vastly lower than they would have been (from past experience) without nets. But organic farmers don't net whole fields of broccoli...

[Stan79]

In my plot i have an old gazebo frame covered with a sheet of builders scaffolding debris netting... It is 2m x 2m x about 180cm tall at the sides and about 2m tall in the centre. I taped the poles and the plastic joints together with duck tape, sowed the holes up in the debris netting with wool and a large needle and zip tied the netting to the framework leaving an overlap of fabric on one corner to act as a door/flap. Works a treat until one of my family leaves the door/flap open!!! The only problem with it is that i get carried away and plant too many brassicas in it so they go leggy and i have to support the plants with stakes!

On the commercial scale... i too wonder how "organic" veg is produced. Unless organic isn't as "organic" as we assume it is!

[Jimmy]

I think if you have a massive field of say sprouts then they are less likely to get attacked than if you have just 4 plants.
Well that's my theory !
Jimmy

[Davidworcestershire]

Thank you

Fine netting is expensive and pinching the wife's curtains is dangerous. I had purchase builders scaffolding netting but did not allow for plant growth which meant that the blue pipe hoops I had used were a bit tight and the covering had to be a adjusted which left gaps and these little beggars are cunning. This year I will be ready for them. Whitefly leave a sticky residue and I am wondering if this helps to create the black mould. I have also learnt that dead or dying leaves including any that are lying on the ground should be removed and burnt. I planted out marigolds amongst my plants though they did not have any visible affect. Is there a specific marigold that should be used or are they all the same? I also learnt that the lower leafs of plants as they get bigger should be taken off to allow air to circulate. Everything is a learning curve. Here I sit at night with my bowl of gruel thumbing through vegetable growing books. It's all more work I have to do and I thought I had retired. (There is a side benefit though, I lost over a stone in weight over the last year).

[veggiechicken]

You never stop learning with this gardening lark - and every year is different. You can only try your best, enjoy the things that work well and chalk the rest up to experience - and never let the failures get you down.
Retirement is about doing things that give you pleasure