Cabbage attracts several pests , including aphids , flea beetles , cabbage maggots , and caterpillars from a variety of moths . Inspecting your cabbage for eggs , early appearances by the larva , and early signs of price help to get infestations too soon and prevent serious damage . If your cabbage does become infest , though , organic treatment can control all of these pests .
Getting to Know the Pesky Intruders
The pests that attack gelt let in :
The Green Team: Cabbage Loopers, Diamondback Moth Caterpillars, and Imported Cabbageworms
These first three are green caterpillar , and they are sometimes lumped together as ” green worms . ” They have tell apart characteristics , though , and it can be important to know which metal money is attacking your Brassica oleracea .
Cabbage Looper Caterpillar
Thecabbage looper caterpillaris a wakeful yellow - green with four white stripes run down the length of its body , and it is so named because , like an inchworm , it has legs on its front and rearward ends , but none in the middle . So , like an looper , when it crawls , the mid - department of its body arches up into a grummet .
The lettuce measuring worm moth has blotch , greyish - brown , 1 - 1/2 inch extension with a small , silvery , sock - like patch at the center of the upper wings . You ’ll see these moth flying around at dusk .
Newly hatch caterpillars are most probable to be on the underside of the low leaves , but as they develop they move to the center of the plant to run between the veins of the leaves .
Diamondback Moth Caterpillar
The diamondback moth caterpillar is also yellow-bellied - green , but it is little and shaped as if it were molded between a pair of digression . It ’s most readily identified by two stubby legs that protrude from its rear .
The moth is also little and slender with a greyish - brown body and an upturned “ tail end ” . When its not in flight , the wings are fold . Where the fender of the virile moth meet , you ’ll see three yellowish diamond form .
The egg are mold like small yellow football . They will be on the underside of the leaves and might be laid individually or in small bunch .
You might find the caterpillars feeding anywhere on the plant , but when the cultivated cabbage is young , they favour the bud .
Imported Cabbageworm
Theimported cabbagewormis a moody light-green with faint icteric stripes down its consistence , and it ’s cover with fine hairs that give it a velvety look . The parent is the imported cabbage white moth .
This moth measures 1 - 3/4 inches longsighted with black spots on the upper flank and a yellowed tint to the underside of the wings .
The carinated , bullet - shaped eggs are laid singly and might be institute anywhere on your cabbage . They are white-hot when they are first laid but turn dark yellow .
You ’ll bump the caterpillars on the undersides of the leaves next to the veins or the cardinal rib . They feed near the center of attention of the plant , but do not of necessity give only near the veins .
The Wormy Wrigglers: Cross-Striped Cabbageworms, Beet Armyworms, and Cutworms
Thesewormsalso are the larva of various moth , but they opt not to be chunk together by their color or markings .
Cross-Striped Cabbageworms
Cross - striped cabbageworms assess about 3/4 inch long . They are blueish - grayish with shameful and yellow stripes along the distance of the side of their consistence and pitch-dark stripes across the width of their cover .
The moth has a 1 - column inch wingspan and is brown to yellowish brown with colored zigzag grading on the offstage .
The yellowish egg are laid in masses of 20 or 30 creating a scale - corresponding look on the bottom of the leaves .
Cross - striped cabbageworms feed on any tender part of the flora , but they prefer the buds .
Beet Armyworms
common beet armyworms are dark green to black with o.k. , wavy bloodless lines down the length of the back and a wider bar along the length of the sides . They have dark head , and they also usually have a coloured blot on each side just above the 2d yoke of branch .
Beet armyworms are the larva of the diminished mottled willow moth , a gray or brown moth with mottled brown upper wings and white low-pitched wings with black dark-brown veins and a border with a thin stripe of dark Robert Brown and an taboo band of white .
The eggs are laid in clustering of up to 80 ballock . You will find the eggs under a natural covering of cottony white-hot scales .
After they first hatch , you will discover the larva feeding together near their egg cluster . As they grow , though , they move out from the clustering , and each larva may feed on several neighboring plants .
Cutworms
Several varieties of cutworm do get lumped together . They are gray with smooth skins that give them a slippy , greasy look , so they are sometimes false for grubs , as is the damage they do to foliage .
They are the larva of several dark-brown or grey-haired , nocturnal , dark - winged moths .
The moths lay their eggs at night on sess , Mary Jane , your cabbage , and other host plant .
Like the moth , cutworm are nocturnal and provender at night on the stem and , sometimes , the foliation of young plants . During the daytime , they retreat into tunnel underground where they fee on solution and can cut through the stalk , killing the flora .
The Buggy Gang : Flea Beetles , Cabbage Aphids , and Cabbage Maggots
Flea Beetles
Flea beetles are lowly , glazed , striped or solid color beetles of various metal money that can be chocolate-brown , bronze , dim , or metallic to bluish gray . One thing they all have in common is the large back leg that enable to leap around your works .
Flea beetles lay their eggs on the earth , and the 1/4 column inch long larva provender on the roots of the plant .
The grownup flea beetles do more equipment casualty than the larva , though . As they fertilise on the leaves , they create “ shotholes ” that give foliage a lacy look . When the damage is severe enough , it can stunt or kill unseasoned plants . Flea beetles also can spread wilt disease and blight among your plant life .
Cabbage Aphids
Like other aphids , cabbage aphids have farsighted feeler and pear shaped bodies . wampum aphids are low-cal green with a waxy , grayish finishing .
You ’ll find cabbage aphids on the undersides of folio where they suck the tomfool from your cabbage . The leaves may seam , curl , or loving cup , and cabbage heads may be stunted .
Cabbage Maggots
Cabbage maggotsare legless , white larva with pointed heads and blunt ass . They burrow into and feed on the stems and rootage of your cabbage . They can riddle plant with tunnels that allow other pests and diseases to gain entrance . Your clams may look purplish or hoar - blueness rather than unripe and be stunted or wilted .
The eggs are laid by dark gray rainfly that have three grade insignia on their rear , black legs , and smoky gray wings .
To reduce the hazard of maggot infestation , avoid planting your moolah ahead of time if there is potential to be an extended period of cool , tight atmospheric condition .
Controlling Cabbage Pests
One mode to moderate all of these pest is to grow your cabbage within of dustup cover version . These covers prevent grownup insects from laying their nut on your cabbage or on the primer around it .
Flea beetles and some moths overwinter in brushy areas . If you have such an field near your garden , mowing it down removes this winter endurance harbor .
till your garden in the dip exposes eggs and pupa in the soil to wintertime ’s stale , killing them .
Although it ’s fourth dimension eat , if you come up testis , caterpillars , or maggot on your cabbage , you may take away them by hand . If you come up one to a great extent infest leaf or plant , give it and murder it to protect the balance .
Cabbage does grow low to the ground , but aphids have very weak legs . If you leaf them off of your wampum with a good time of H2O from your garden hosiery , they may not be able to climb back up onto your works .
If you diffuse diatomaceous earth around the root word of your cabbages , it will puncture flabby - bodied caterpillars , cutworms , and aphids that crawl over it .
Bacillus thuringiensis egest cutworms , but it can also harm good louse , as can garlic oil spray .
If you plan to habituate garlic crude oil spray , you should quiz the concentration on one plant and dilute it as take before spraying it on all of your industrial plant to get rid of aphids . You should also test homemade sprays made with alcoholic drink and dishwashing liquid before using them extensively .
love apple leaf spraying is favorable to plant , but tomatoes are related to nightshade , so those who are sensitized to nightshade should wear off gloves when chop the tomato plant leaves to make this spray for check aphid on boodle , kale , and other related to plants .
Attracting or release louse that prey on these cabbage pests in another way of control them . For example , lady beetle or noblewoman beetles , lacewings , and hoverflies predate on aphids while fireflies raven on cutworm .
you could buy lady beetles , lacewings , and hoverflies to release in your garden , and fireflies are attract to orbit where there are short Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and shrub in at they use as perch spot during the day .
fellow traveller plant can also help gross out pests or sprightliness them away . radish and nasturtiums lead flea beetles away from lucre while catnip and St. Basil the Great repel them . import boodle white moth are draw to mustard greens but repelled by thyme while bitter cress , which is related to mustard , attracts the diamondback moth but kills diamondback caterpillars when they begin to feed on it .
