You are what you eat. If you are a caterpillar and you eat cabbages, you are a survivalist!! Because when you eat cabbages you absorb Mustard-oils, which prevent birds and other animals eating you … because mustard-oils make the caterpillars taste bad. And smell bad too.
Great to know when you next look at one of your plants stripped of its leaves.
The Wrigglers #cartoon to understand why cabbage White Butterflies lay their eggs on #cabbage family #plants.
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Companion planting
Planting Nasturtiums with your cabbages, together with netting the cabbages, could really make the difference between a good harvest and a non-existent one.
#Nasturtiums are the perfect companion crop – part of the cabbage family, they are just as tasty to the Cabbage White caterpillars as cabbages themselves.
Grow veg
has an article on this: https://www.growveg.co.uk/guides/confuse-pests-with-companion-planting/
Gardener’s World
Companion planting combinations
find out how to combine vegetables and flowers on the veg plot, controlling pests and encouraging healthy plants.
Green life soil
has a good list for companion planting, suggestions on what to plant and what not to plant next to your prize vegetables:
Netting
The last egg laying of the season occurs in late August to September time depending on weather conditions. The eggs are laid on both the under and upper surface of leaves. The caterpillars emerge after a short time and begin to feed on the leaves of plants, typically members of the cabbage family.
Fine nets with a 4-7mm mesh give good protection against cabbage white butterflies as long as the foliage does not touch the net, and of course bird and mammal pests.
Fine mesh: 0.8mm Good for very small pests such as soil pests such as cabbage root fly too. Birds and mammal pests are also excluded.
Here are a couple of links for further reading,
Garden focussed article on how to treat Cabaage White Butterfly
An English Garden article on how to outwit the Cabbage White
#cabbagewhite #gardenpests #cabbages #brassicas #butterflies #butterfly #nature #macro #insects #naturephotography #butterfliesofinstagram #insect #art #flowers #wildlife
#nastursiums #companionplanting
@GardenOrganicUK
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