Perennial cabbage

[Kayleigh]

Last year I decided to grow a few cabbage in large pots. As well as other veg. I went on holiday only to come home to skeletonised cabbages. I left the caterpillars on the plants.
The cabbages have now started to regrow so I will leave them for the caterpillars and hopefully help the bluetits through the spring and summer.

[Susie]

Don't these go to seed, Kayleigh?

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by Susie

Don't these go to seed, Kayleigh?

I don't know? I don't intend to eat them.... I'm a lazy gardener and just didn't remove them and they started to regrow... So the caterpillars can eat them. I love the cabbage whites. I must be the only gardener that doesn't mind the butterfly's laying eggs on and eating their cabbages.

[Susie]

I am sure it is a very environmentally friendly thing to do, a bit like recycling, Kayleigh.

I love the whites too, but am not keen on growing cabbages (never tried the decorative ones) so I plant the big climbing nasturtiums for them.

[naturelover]

Originally Posted by Kayleigh

I don't know? I don't intend to eat them.... I'm a lazy gardener and just didn't remove them and they started to regrow... So the caterpillars can eat them. I love the cabbage whites. I must be the only gardener that doesn't mind the butterfly's laying eggs on and eating their cabbages.

hi kayleigh no your not the only one that likes the cabbage white,always remember when dad grew some cabbages one year,one day down the garden i saw him put his foot on a cabbage white,i screamed and said i hate you ran upstairs threw myself on my bed and sobbed my eyes out,i was about 7 so my animal thing started way back then.

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by Susie

Don't these go to seed, Kayleigh?

Yes, but the plants will keep on growing until summer at least. In my experience (of kale more than cabbage proper but in effect the same thing, brassicas are brassicas are ... ) the seedlings will grow on for the next autumn/winter.

Mind, I'm not too sure that this is a good thing: building up large populations of a pest species may not bother you but anyone nearby trying to grow the plants for food or sale may not take too kindly?

Also, do birds eat large white caterpillars? I have a feeling not ..... I think that is one of the reasons they can be so numerous ans such pests, they have few predators.

[Kayleigh]

Also, do birds eat large white caterpillars? I have a feeling not ..... I think that is one of the reasons they can be so numerous ans such pests, they have few predators.

I have seen starlings eating large green caterpillars, also on spring watch there was a blue tit feed a really large caterpillar to one of its young... People can net the veg to keep them off as I do to keep the wood pigeons off my beans.... . I only have three plants I'm not going into a large breeding programme. Aren't the caterpillars about the same size as meal worms?

Anyway we have large population of toads,frogs and newts I'm sure they eat them.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Mind, I'm not too sure that this is a good thing: building up large populations of a pest species may not bother you but anyone nearby trying to grow the plants for food or sale may not take too kindly?

Also, do birds eat large white caterpillars? I have a feeling not ..... I think that is one of the reasons they can be so numerous ans such pests, they have few predators.

Commercial growers can now use a parasitic wasp as control, a species that is anyway native to the UK. Starlings are reputed to take White Butterfly caterpillars although most birds apparently dislike the taste - the caterpillar absorbes 'mustard' compounds from its cruciferae food plants.

CM