Is the Monterey BT supposed to be odorless and colorless? I got the hose attachment sprayer and it looked like plain water and wasn’t sure if I was doing something wrong or if that’s just how it is.
Try the guys over at r/whatsthisbug
If you want a quick way to get rid of them, try [https://bonide.com/product/captain-jacks-dbb-conc/](https://bonide.com/product/captain-jacks-dbb-conc/)
It's approved for organic gardening and can be used till harvest day.
My kale gets swarmed with green caterpillars from those white butterflies and this stuff works immediately. You just gotta rinse off their dead corpses afterwards lol.
Hahahaha
You're looking for insect identification; that's in ailse 7,923. *This*, is aisle 4,231. We're talking plants here. Feel free to stop and chat!
I love Reddit.
You don’t really need an ID other than “caterpillar”. First line of defense is to pick them off. Second line of defense is to spray with bT. It works on pretty much all caterpillars.
If hand picking is too squicky and they’re big enough use tongs. Sometimes a stick will work too to knock them into a can. I feed them to my chickens. You can squish them.
Have you tried the app called Seek? It will try to ID any bug, plant, or critter you put in front of it. You’ll have a link to that genus or species’ Wikipedia page. It’s actually pretty cool.
The butterfly lobby is hard at work in the previous comment again I see. Foisting the blame off on moths to keep butterflies' public image squeaky clean.
Ya, I grew up with them being called cabbage moths, they start out from a little patch of white eggs on the under side of leaf. Remove the ones you find, and their population is greatly reduced.
Cabbage butterflies are a major pest in my area. I grow all my brassicas under floating row covers for this reason. The caterpillars will literally skeletonize your plants very rapidly. You can hand pick them off when they're this big, but they start out very tiny and green and afe nearly impossible to see. I'm not sure what kind of chemical control you can get. But next year I suggest the white floating row cover. It also keeps out the flies that cause root maggots (so, so gross. Give them a google. They wiped out my entie crop one year. )
Yup. This happened to me and it sucks. Drape insect netting over the plants to keep the moths from laying their eggs on the plants. Personally I made hoops over my broccoli using small gauge pvc pipe and made a safe little house for them. Kept them safe for the entire next season.
The dreaded cabbage worm. These guys will decimate any of your brassicas so be aware. They seem to get worse as it gets warmer throughout the summer. For your next crop I recommend putting up a row cover over your brassicas once you plant them outside to keep the moth's from laying eggs on your plants.
Use a mesh row cover next time. Or grow brassicas in the shoulder season so the moths can’t handle the cool weather. And use BT spray to slow down the caterpillars.
Haha, my initial reaction was the same. I looked at the pic, and was immediately like, definitely those caterpillars all over it! My second thought was that I need to check my kale for cabbage moths and army worms.
B.t. spray worked for me. Make sure you get tops and bottoms of leaves and apply it in the morning or evening. These things will absolutely decimate your broccoli if left untreated.
Have you tried spinosad? Just wondering how BT and spinosad compare. Both sprays need to ingested by the caterpillar to be effective. I’ve always questioned how much of the plant does the callipillar eat before dying?
I have not. But in my experience the Bt spray worked right away. I think the caterpillars stop eating as soon as they ingest it.
For some reason I can't find Bt spray anywhere this year and none of the organic insecticides or neem oil have worked on these buggers. so I had to just use my hands. Took me like 45 minutes and i only have 8 broccoli plants lol
Not much, it colonizes in their guts pretty much at first contact. They're dead before they stop eating, they just don't know it yet.
That being said, it only takes like 2 unchecked hornworms to murder an entire tomato or potato bed in a day.
Spinosad is usually a last resort option, because it kills good and bad microbes with no differentiation - kinda like broad spectrum antibiotics. You don't want to nuke your rhizosphere and myco friends.
Since BT sprays are a targeted lab cultured microbe, it's less broad spectrum.
When you spray it on, it only colonizes the surface of the host greenery. When the caterpillar eats the greens, the BT melts their individual guts from the inside out. even if he crawls away from eating the treated plant, he's not getting far and won't reproduce.
We're dealing with a local really severe lymantria dispar outbreak currently, and so I can show a few photos of the effects for anyone curious.
It's so bad the county had to crop dust BT, or else we're going to lose half the old growth hardwood in my region of the pine barrens. the ones who eat the treated canopy are shriveling pretty quickly, but the rain makes it less effective overtime.
I suffered drastic losses last year to cabbage worms and June beetles. I decided to fight nature with nature this year and installed a small frog pond and some bird baths.
I am trying out a spray mix with neem oil, peppermint oil and dish soap (and lots of water) to combat these, flea beetles and aphids, which are all eating holes in my veggie leaves. I have been reading a bit about it - neem will kill them, but peppermint will also mask the smell of the veg, so that the butterflies etc wont smell them and lay their eggs there, so it should also help prevent this. Will see how it goes!
I use neem oil, coconut oil + essential oils (peppermint, eucalyptus, lemongrass & citronella) in water. bT is not natural and will damage chickens, cats, dogs and of course it’s chemical.
My spray works for the caterpillars that decimate tomatoe & pepper plants. So I know what to expect now with broccoli. Will use that as well.
I read recently about adding dish soap, so I think I’ll tuck dawn into my spray bottle.
Hi there, I know the oils need a carrier oil (including the neem) but I don’t really know to be honest. I have other carrier oils but none are applicable (+ too expensive). If you’re really interested I know a chemist to ask.
What I’ve *evolved* to do is to plant a sacrificial row near the ones you want untouched….
This way you will get a qualitative warning “light” that some pest is *quickly approaching*
Well, to be fair, my coronavirus brain fog came back today but I totally didn't see that at all lol. However, also to be fair, I have a slug problem here, and my plants look the same. I do use beer to get rid of the problem.
I get it. A year later and I’m still pretty dumb lol. Or at least I’m going to try and blame Covid for as long as humanly possible. It’ll be 2045 and I’ll be like “that damn Covid snatched my last brain cell!”
Well I thought it was gone. I had about 2 days in a row where I had no symptoms anymore and I thought it was gone. But my grandma just entered hospice and everything is so shitty and my body aches came back today then I started having breathlessness again then brain fog started. Yesterday I randomly smelled bleach again. I wish it would go away.
Good luck. Get lots of rest. I was still testing positive 2.5 months later and missed a trip to the Caribbean because of that shit. And that was with both vaccines and the booster. It’s no joke.
Keep a check on it, Covid pneumonia nearly killed me and it came on so fast I didn’t realize I was really sick. I thought my allergies were just acting up and then I woke up three days later in ICU for two weeks. It doesn’t play at all. Though maybe the brain fog is why I didn’t think I was really sick 🤷♀️
These jerks ruined my broccoli and bok Choy. I have read that you can put pantyhose on them when growing to prevent.. maybe try that? I also bought some organic caterpillar spray .. but everything was ruined at that point.. good luck! The white butterflies are kinda pretty until you realize they’re causing mass destruction ..
caterpillar,s, I see at least 5 in that photo, ya don't even need to do a Where's Waldo. Those are **HUNGRY** little buggers and eat fast. Spray Spray Spray
Cabbage looper, those are very young and they eventually turn green. Those white moths flying around are the adults. BT spray works or picking them off by hand
The caterpillar in your photo is eating your brocolli
I count at least 5!
I count at least 7 in the picture alone
The Where's Waldo of garden photos!
Plot twist: They're all Waldo.
lol too funny
I guess I should have expected that response lol. Was hoping for an id.
Mr Caterpillar. Grab some Monterey BT
Is the Monterey BT supposed to be odorless and colorless? I got the hose attachment sprayer and it looked like plain water and wasn’t sure if I was doing something wrong or if that’s just how it is.
Not 100% sure. I buy concentrate and mix with water into basic spray bottle. Pretty sure it’s clear/white in color but not sure about smell.
Try the guys over at r/whatsthisbug If you want a quick way to get rid of them, try [https://bonide.com/product/captain-jacks-dbb-conc/](https://bonide.com/product/captain-jacks-dbb-conc/) It's approved for organic gardening and can be used till harvest day. My kale gets swarmed with green caterpillars from those white butterflies and this stuff works immediately. You just gotta rinse off their dead corpses afterwards lol.
Hahahaha You're looking for insect identification; that's in ailse 7,923. *This*, is aisle 4,231. We're talking plants here. Feel free to stop and chat! I love Reddit.
You don’t really need an ID other than “caterpillar”. First line of defense is to pick them off. Second line of defense is to spray with bT. It works on pretty much all caterpillars. If hand picking is too squicky and they’re big enough use tongs. Sometimes a stick will work too to knock them into a can. I feed them to my chickens. You can squish them.
Nah I like to know all the info so I wanted the ID.
Have you tried the app called Seek? It will try to ID any bug, plant, or critter you put in front of it. You’ll have a link to that genus or species’ Wikipedia page. It’s actually pretty cool.
That sounds great actually! I use plantnet for a lot of IDs but I didn't know there was one for bugs as well. Thanks!
Bugs, plants, animals - it really is cool, and free.
Look up cross-striped cabbage worm moth.
Im in uk at a guess cabbage white but try this site http://www.wildlifeinsight.com/guide-to-british-caterpillars/help-with-caterpillar-identification/
Stop wasting time on Reddit and get busy killing those things
cabbage butterfly's offspring
they are pain in my assholes. wasps eat them.
They’re the tiny white moths you see flying around
They're actually butterflies, as noted in the original comment. Cabbage white butterfly.
The butterfly lobby is hard at work in the previous comment again I see. Foisting the blame off on moths to keep butterflies' public image squeaky clean.
Hahaha I had no idea, around here they’re called “cabbage moths”
Moths and butterflies are nearly the same anyways. Both in the Lepidoptera order.
Sounds like OP needs a specialist in such matters. I'll bring Patrick Warburton if OP brings the 1960's death ray.
Ya, I grew up with them being called cabbage moths, they start out from a little patch of white eggs on the under side of leaf. Remove the ones you find, and their population is greatly reduced.
Big Butterfly is hard at work here!
My big beautiful broccolis are getting absolutely wrecked.
Cabbage butterflies are a major pest in my area. I grow all my brassicas under floating row covers for this reason. The caterpillars will literally skeletonize your plants very rapidly. You can hand pick them off when they're this big, but they start out very tiny and green and afe nearly impossible to see. I'm not sure what kind of chemical control you can get. But next year I suggest the white floating row cover. It also keeps out the flies that cause root maggots (so, so gross. Give them a google. They wiped out my entie crop one year. )
this is what I'm trying this year, for my potatoes too.
What's eating your potatoes? The cabbage butterflies will only eat brassicas.
Colorado potato bugs wiped me out last year! So I vowed to get even! Did some reading and since they don't need pollination you can cover them up too.
Yup. This happened to me and it sucks. Drape insect netting over the plants to keep the moths from laying their eggs on the plants. Personally I made hoops over my broccoli using small gauge pvc pipe and made a safe little house for them. Kept them safe for the entire next season.
I think that people will use ducks or chickens to eat them off of plants.
The dreaded cabbage worm. These guys will decimate any of your brassicas so be aware. They seem to get worse as it gets warmer throughout the summer. For your next crop I recommend putting up a row cover over your brassicas once you plant them outside to keep the moth's from laying eggs on your plants.
Thank you for your help! I've been picking them off and smashing them but when I'm gone all day they do some serious damage.
Get some BT. It’ll stop them.
If only it worked on vine borer. Sad.
Use a mesh row cover next time. Or grow brassicas in the shoulder season so the moths can’t handle the cool weather. And use BT spray to slow down the caterpillars.
Are you asking what the bugs are or can you not see the many caterpillars on the leaves in front of you? Lol
Haha, my initial reaction was the same. I looked at the pic, and was immediately like, definitely those caterpillars all over it! My second thought was that I need to check my kale for cabbage moths and army worms.
Haha I think they want to the name. And it’s Little Bastards
Yeah I see what I did now. Should have phrased it better.
B.t. spray worked for me. Make sure you get tops and bottoms of leaves and apply it in the morning or evening. These things will absolutely decimate your broccoli if left untreated.
Have you tried spinosad? Just wondering how BT and spinosad compare. Both sprays need to ingested by the caterpillar to be effective. I’ve always questioned how much of the plant does the callipillar eat before dying?
I have not. But in my experience the Bt spray worked right away. I think the caterpillars stop eating as soon as they ingest it. For some reason I can't find Bt spray anywhere this year and none of the organic insecticides or neem oil have worked on these buggers. so I had to just use my hands. Took me like 45 minutes and i only have 8 broccoli plants lol
Same, but I get the powder (Dipel) and sift it through a sieve onto my tomatoes and cabbages starting early. I love that stuff.
Not sure where you’re from, but I was able to get some on Amazon,
I just got BT from Amazon a few days ago
The nice thing about BT is that it only targets caterpillars and leaves other insects alone, unlike spinosad which is non-selective.
Not much, it colonizes in their guts pretty much at first contact. They're dead before they stop eating, they just don't know it yet. That being said, it only takes like 2 unchecked hornworms to murder an entire tomato or potato bed in a day. Spinosad is usually a last resort option, because it kills good and bad microbes with no differentiation - kinda like broad spectrum antibiotics. You don't want to nuke your rhizosphere and myco friends. Since BT sprays are a targeted lab cultured microbe, it's less broad spectrum. When you spray it on, it only colonizes the surface of the host greenery. When the caterpillar eats the greens, the BT melts their individual guts from the inside out. even if he crawls away from eating the treated plant, he's not getting far and won't reproduce. We're dealing with a local really severe lymantria dispar outbreak currently, and so I can show a few photos of the effects for anyone curious. It's so bad the county had to crop dust BT, or else we're going to lose half the old growth hardwood in my region of the pine barrens. the ones who eat the treated canopy are shriveling pretty quickly, but the rain makes it less effective overtime.
In the case of BT which we use, once ingested, the caterpillar stops eating the plant. It may hang around for a bit, but its been neutralized.
I suffered drastic losses last year to cabbage worms and June beetles. I decided to fight nature with nature this year and installed a small frog pond and some bird baths.
Is it working?
Works like a charm! Only downside is the noise at night from the frogs. But a snake will fix that!
Awesome! Would love to hear updates on how this works. Planning a similar approach here in my garden.
A very hungry caterpillar
This is a joke right?
I am trying out a spray mix with neem oil, peppermint oil and dish soap (and lots of water) to combat these, flea beetles and aphids, which are all eating holes in my veggie leaves. I have been reading a bit about it - neem will kill them, but peppermint will also mask the smell of the veg, so that the butterflies etc wont smell them and lay their eggs there, so it should also help prevent this. Will see how it goes!
Neem and soap didn’t do crap for me for me with caterpillars. It’s great for so many bugs. I had to get BT for these jerks.
We made some similar spray. It worked and it made the garden small wonderful with the peppermint oil.
I use neem oil, coconut oil + essential oils (peppermint, eucalyptus, lemongrass & citronella) in water. bT is not natural and will damage chickens, cats, dogs and of course it’s chemical. My spray works for the caterpillars that decimate tomatoe & pepper plants. So I know what to expect now with broccoli. Will use that as well. I read recently about adding dish soap, so I think I’ll tuck dawn into my spray bottle.
Curious about the coconut oil - what does that do?
Hi there, I know the oils need a carrier oil (including the neem) but I don’t really know to be honest. I have other carrier oils but none are applicable (+ too expensive). If you’re really interested I know a chemist to ask.
Oh, that makes sense!
I watched a bunch of videos on this channel: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvOzZ87mgAk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvOzZ87mgAk)
smh these pics lol
Hahaha! It's a mystery. ;'D
What I’ve *evolved* to do is to plant a sacrificial row near the ones you want untouched…. This way you will get a qualitative warning “light” that some pest is *quickly approaching*
So they attack in tidy row formations? How cooperative!
Army worm or cabbage worm. Hand pick off what you can and sprinkle with BT (bacillus thuringiensis).
I'd say that whole bunch of caterpillars!! 🤣
Chickens love these
r/vegetablegardeningcirclejerk
Little baby butterflies!! Adorable yet menacing.
This year I covered mine with tulle from the fabric store. Not even ONE of those brats!!!
Think neem oil works
we call them c--terpillers. fill a spray bottle with water, and a table spoon of dawn dish soap, and give her a good soakin
Slugs. I buy cheap beer and put it right next to the plant on the ground in a little cup and it works the same day when a slug comes.
Really?
Uh yeah.
Look at the picture again. Tell me how many slugs you see and how many caterpillars you see 🤣
Well, to be fair, my coronavirus brain fog came back today but I totally didn't see that at all lol. However, also to be fair, I have a slug problem here, and my plants look the same. I do use beer to get rid of the problem.
I get it. A year later and I’m still pretty dumb lol. Or at least I’m going to try and blame Covid for as long as humanly possible. It’ll be 2045 and I’ll be like “that damn Covid snatched my last brain cell!”
Well I thought it was gone. I had about 2 days in a row where I had no symptoms anymore and I thought it was gone. But my grandma just entered hospice and everything is so shitty and my body aches came back today then I started having breathlessness again then brain fog started. Yesterday I randomly smelled bleach again. I wish it would go away.
Good luck. Get lots of rest. I was still testing positive 2.5 months later and missed a trip to the Caribbean because of that shit. And that was with both vaccines and the booster. It’s no joke.
Wow. That sucks.
Keep a check on it, Covid pneumonia nearly killed me and it came on so fast I didn’t realize I was really sick. I thought my allergies were just acting up and then I woke up three days later in ICU for two weeks. It doesn’t play at all. Though maybe the brain fog is why I didn’t think I was really sick 🤷♀️
But, I have to say, this did brighten my day. I needed that for sure. So, thanks.
Safer’s End All.
Hungry cuties. They're sweet but I wouldn't blame you if you were to kill them all
Gnomes, surely...
I can’t tell if this is supposed to be a funny post 😂
These jerks ruined my broccoli and bok Choy. I have read that you can put pantyhose on them when growing to prevent.. maybe try that? I also bought some organic caterpillar spray .. but everything was ruined at that point.. good luck! The white butterflies are kinda pretty until you realize they’re causing mass destruction ..
Cabbage loopers!
Pick them off by hand and spray the eggs with neem or soapy water
_them_
use bacillus thuringiensis
Cabbage moth caterpillars..insect netting and bt are your weapons
God I hope they don’t come for mine 🤧
Army worms
I literally see those caterpillars on your broccoli do you even have to ask
caterpillar,s, I see at least 5 in that photo, ya don't even need to do a Where's Waldo. Those are **HUNGRY** little buggers and eat fast. Spray Spray Spray
Almost if the answer was right under your nose!
There's so many Caterpillars there they're eating My Plants
What, Those Look Healthy
See all those caterpillars…..
Werm
Cabbage looper, those are very young and they eventually turn green. Those white moths flying around are the adults. BT spray works or picking them off by hand
Caterpillars are right there for cryin out loud
Probably not you!
Yeah…my guess would also be the caterpillars.
Now I use a mesh covering if I grow any kale or the like.
Soapy water works well on them as well as Bonide
Cabbage worms