Cabbage Caterpillars

Greetings Steemians! Welcome to the first installment of what I intend on being an ongoing series dealing with pest problems I'm having in my garden. I may expand to other pest problems at a later point in time, but for now, I'm going to stick with pests I'm actually having, or have had, problems with.

As I mentioned yesterday in my most recent Garden Update post, I've been having problems with caterpillars in my Cole crops. This is an ongoing issue that existed before I ever took over the garden. The year before I took over, every time I walked into the garden there were cabbage butterflies everywhere. Dozens upon dozens of them. Very pretty. But not so great for the garden.

For those who don't know, this is a cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae)

And this is what their caterpillars, Imported Cabbageworms, look like.

Notice that these guys have kind of a fuzzy appearance. That's a pretty good indicator that the green caterpillar in your Cole crops is one of these guys. They have something of a velvety type appearance to them from all those short hairs.

Another type of cabbage caterpillar I have problems with is the Cross-striped cabbageworm (Evergestis rimosalis). These guys are fairly distinctive in appearance as well.

These guys are actually a moth rather than a butterfly. I'm assuming these are actually a nocturnal species of moth as I've never actually seen the moths in the garden. Since I've never seen them, I obviously don't have any pics of them. If you're interested in seeing what the moths actually look like, there are some good pics here.

The third type of cabbage caterpillars that are in my garden are Cabbage Loopers (Trichoplusia ni). These guys are a green caterpillar as well but are fairly easily distinguished from the imported cabbageworm by the lack of a velvety fuzz. They actually have more of a smooth, shinier appearance to them. They also tend to have stripes running the length of their body and defining their segments.

I keep trying to get pictures of the Cabbage Loopers, but have had issues with getting good pics using my camera phone. Cabbage Loopers are also a type of moth. I don't have any pics of the moths either, but if you're interested, there are a couple of good ones here.

Control Methods

I use a fairly basic IPM (integrated pest management) system that controls all three species.

The first step is scouting. Watch for the cabbage butterflies in your garden. Check your plants for eggs and caterpillars. Look for any feeding damage.

As soon as any of these show up, it's time to start spraying with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacteria specific to butterfly and moth caterpillars). Spraying once a week is usually required throughout the growing season.

Between weekly Bt sprays, I continue scouting for caterpillars on a daily basis. Bt is fairly effective when conditions are optimal, but if you live somewhere like I do where the weather can be unpredictable, sometimes your timing is just going to be off. Any caterpillars I find between sprays are removed from the plants by hand and dropped into a bucket of soapy water.

I usually just use some Dawn in water to create soapy water and then just drop stuff in (or throw it in depending on whether it flies or not). This method works for pretty much anything I've tried it on. Including Japanese Beetles. Be sure to wear gloves. Some insects may bite or otherwise react in a way you don't want to be directly touching.

This is a picture of the caterpillars I picked out of the garden yesterday.

I sprayed early in the week last week, and then it rained on Friday so the Bt was basically gone over the weekend. It still amazes me just how little time it can take for a pest problem to develop and actually become a major problem in the garden.

All pictures in this post were taken by me on a HTC Desire Eye phone camera.

As always, if you have any comments, questions, suggestions, etc. please leave them below.

Other Recent Posts:

Garden Update 1

Garden Update 2

Bio

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Until next time