What to Do When Bugs Are Eating Your Cabbage Plants in the Garden
Holes on leaves, leaf veins chewed through, cabbage being gnawed from the ground up--something's been feasting on the cabbage you worked so hard to plant, and you want it to stop. Unfortunately, there is a whole rogue's gallery of caterpillars and insects that can infest cabbage plants. By properly identifying these pests and using the right techniques to control them, you can take your cabbage off the menu.
Cabbage Pests
The first sign you will probably see of the Imported cabbageworm is a group of small, innocuous-looking white butterflies fluttering around your plants. In its larval stage, the cabbageworm is a green caterpillar that feeds on the outer leaves of the cabbage plants, leaving gaping holes. The cabbage looper, another destructive pest, is named for the looping way in which it moves. Like cabbageworms, cabbage loopers are a beautiful shade of green, but they do ugly things to your cabbage plants, leaving sharp-edged but irregularly-shaped little holes all over the leaves. In their adult form, they are grayish-brown moths. You will sometimes see cabbage looper eggs--ridged, white and round--laid singly on the undersides of leaves. Cabbage loopers tend to crawl on the undersides of leaves along the leaf margins, feeding on the areas between the leaf veins. Cutworms, which look like grayish or brownish grubs, cause serious damage to stems and foliage, and can be found close to the soil feeding on the developing cabbage head. Flea beetles--so called because they jump when disturbed--leave sharp-edged, tiny round holes; if uncontrolled, they can kill your cabbage plants. Finally, cabbage aphids--pale-green like other aphids, but exhibiting a grayish, waxy coat--infest the undersides of cabbage plants. They cause curling, wrinkled leaves, stunted plants and ruined heads.
Cabbage Pest Control
Stop the life cycle of the cabbageworms and loopers by picking them off by hand and squashing them; you can also apply insecticides like malathion and Sevin. Prevent the worms from getting on your plants by protecting them with floating row covers--sheets of translucent, spun-fiber material that create an insect barrier. Hand-pick cutworms from your plants, and spray or dust the leaves with Sevin. To find out if cutworms are eating your plants from underground, scratch the soil. If you find subterranean cutworms at work, treat the soil as well. Control flea beetles by using floating row covers, and by spraying the bacterial insecticide bacillus thuringiensis. Control aphids by releasing ladybugs, spraying the cabbage with forceful jets of water and spraying with insecticidal soap.
Natural Control
Control cabbage loopers and cabbageworms with applications of neem oil, hot pepper wax or a naturally occurring chemical called rotenone. Smother cutworms with neem oil, or form a physical barrier by placing a 3-inch-high cardboard collar around each cabbage plant, pushed down 1 inch into the soil. Plant oregano or tansy to discourage flea beetles.
Deter aphids by putting tinfoil under the plants to reflect sunlight upward; this creates a habitat unattractive to them.
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