[moorlandman]

Hi folks,

Just visited my allotment and upon checked my "few" sprout plants, I was devastated to find leaves with more holes than green stuff, checking further, I found tiny black caterpillars deep inside the heart of the plants. I'm new to veg growing and so far I've had nothing but failures. 
Can anyone tell me please how to get rid of the little ba***rds so at least I can have a few home grown sprouts on my Christmas dinner.
I thought growing herbaceous perennials was difficult enough, but I'm now beginning to wonder how the world manages to grow enough food to feed us all.
Help please

Regards

Terry

[little blue]

Caterpillars on your sprouts?
Sounds painful, you'd better see a doctor!

[doganjo]

I have them too - but they are big green and yellow ones.  I just pick them off every time I go out and chuck them on the drive where they get run over by my neighbours cars.  I am hoping there is enough leaf left to support the baby sprouts

[sabrina]

I have had this problem also but found a tip about soaking rhubarb leaves in water for three wekks then spraying over plants as the buterfly hates the smell. I will try this for next year.

[northfifeduckling]

Never thought of spraying my plants with smelly stuff - shouldn't nettlebrew and comfrey work as well then? I did "water"my plants with it, but the butterflies took no notice whatsoever, decimated broccoli and cabbages in a matter of days. I spoke to a local organic farmer the other day and apparently it was a particularly bad year for caterpillars! Only way is to avoid parts of it is to start plants off early...

[Troubled Waters]

I' afraid the only thing we found to work was to pick em all off and make sure they are netted. We took our net off too early  but theere are some sprouts coming.

Our problems is they are all blowing.  And I was sure I planted em as firm as I could.

Don't forget that the last couple of years haven't been great for growing veg so any successes should be triumphed (is that a word? prob not...) and use it to motivate u next year.  much of it is trial and error as different things work for different people.

Keep at it, it's so worth the first harvest!