White moths on brassica's

TRIAL / SUCCESS : Experiment beats white cabbage butterflies/moths.

This photo shows my young broccoli plants recovering well from previous attacks by white cabbage butterflies.

This success is due to my new experiment this winter of "sprinkling" herbs and other shredded leaves over my growing seedlings. I used rosemary  to begin with - I separated the fresh leaves from the stem and tossed them evenly over the young seedlings. Then I noticed other plants nearby that haven't been eaten, so I pulled some leaves off of those as well and shredded them and tossed them in and around and the seedlings too. These were: potato leaves, spearmint leaves and rocket leaves. 


I now do this on warmer/sunny days as this is when the moths come out, they don't like the cold, rainy weather much. I think it is also deterring earwigs too.

White cabbage butterfly/moths love eating all my cruciferious vegetables - cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy etc. They lay eggs and then their larvae (the green caterpillars) eat the leaves.

I companion plant when I can, but as I have a six bed rotation system, I don't interplant with herbs in every bed. I now plant my herbs in terracotta pots and seat them into the beds they need to be in. 

eg In the top photo you can just see the pot of thyme (mid top) and a pot of parsley (bottom right). I don't know that the parsley stops the moths, but its in a good spot in the corner of the raised bed for me to pick regularly. 

Other organic strategies I’ve tried include hand picking the caterpillars off; laying pieces of eggshell in the garden so the moths mistake them for other moths and look for a quieter place to lay their eggs; using physical barriers such as netting and having lots of small birds in the garden to eat them.