Pests, Pests, Pests…

I’m guessing all gardens have their nemesis. The first bug battle I had was with the dreaded vine borer. I had these amazing squash plants that seemed to wither and die over night. I was heart broken because it took me years to get to the point that I could grow a plant and now this was happening!

Now I battle many bugs; cucumber bugs, squash bugs, flea beetles, vine borer (still) but the one that frustrates me the most is the cabbage moth!

I really love all types of brassicas and they get DECIMATED by the cabbage moth. For a few years a just tried to work about the cabbage moth. Picking plants when they were tiny, looking for resistant varieties, starting seeds early, starting seeds late, the list goes on and on.

Eventually I found two solutions that worked.

First solution: use row covers to keep the cabbage moth from being able to lay eggs on your brassicas.

Pros: You can keep them (and other pests away), its fairly easy, you only need to make a one time financial investment and then you keep reusing the same materials over again.

Cons: You need to have all your brassicas planted together and in a row. We have a kind of hodge-podge garden space and rows rarely happen; if your intercrop plants then this method can be hard to use.

Second solution: use BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis) spray to kill to worms once they have hatched.

Pros: It’s organic (the bacteria is naturally occurring), easy to use, inexpensive, it only effects caterpillars so it doesn’t effect bees (I don’t use it on plants that have flowers or that attract other butterflies)

Cons: You need to reapply it, and i’m not sure how long it lasts (I don’t know if you can save the bottle year to year)

Using those two methods this year will get us our first head of cabbage and our first brussel sprouts!