white cabbage moth/butterfly

[fzjohnsonParticipant]

Please can someone tell me how long the duration will be for these pests? My poor brassicas … I have ordered Bt powder (arriving in September), the first time I will have used it, as the garlic spray has some but limited success. One web site said these pests were rampant until Oct-Nov. Say it isn’t so …

[charlesModerator]

Well, what can I say?!
They don’t give up for a while.
So I would use the Bt. This is a bad year for brassica pests, of all kinds in fact.
Whereas there is no tomato blight, yet.

[fzjohnsonParticipant]

There is magic in this forum. Amazon initially predicted the Bt powder wouldn’t arrive until early September, but the door just rang and guess what? I’m heading to the allotment with my spray bottle. Thank you to the Person who waved his/her magic wand.

[HazelkyParticipant]

Waiting for mine to arrive!!

[KevLParticipant]

Flea beetle has been awful this summer but of interest to me is that my brokali, red and curly kale, calabrese etc are virtually untouched by cabbage whites this summer despite swarms of them hovering around the plants. Could it possibly be due to our community allotments having no water supply so once I had established the module plants in June with imported water, they have had no watering since. However, the outer leaves are like leather and I wonder if the butterflies can’t actually lay their eggs on these tough leaves, or whether their is a natural barrier on there. Any others having this experience?

[TristanParticipant]

For the past six or seven years I have grown a strip of buckwheat around my brassica and have not had serious issues with cabbage whites. They are around in huge numbers but the eggs don’t seem to hatch. It doesn’t work for the plain green caterpillars but there are fewer of them anyway.
I know it’s no help for this year but may be of use next year.

Regards
Tristan

[Author]

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