City Farm Nursery
We're moving into our Temperate Mediterranean weather here in the subtropics which means it's time to revamp your garden!
Have you noticed the White Cabbage butterflies starting to appear in your garden? These guys do a great job of pollinating, but their little green caterpillars, which hide under leaves, are notorious for wreaking sudden brassica massacre in the veggie patch. The eggs hatch within 4 days and can decimate young plants very quickly, so the best way to deal with them is to exclude them from laying their eggs on your leafy greens now.
Netting new seedlings is one option but it can detract from the look of your garden. No worries, we've got you covered. Strong, healthy plants are most resistant to pest attack so ask us how to best nourish your soil. Then try outsmarting them with these integrated pest management methods. The males (with one black spot on each wing) are territorial and short sighted. Aerial acrobatics you'll see demonstrates how they're competing to stake a claim on your patch, where they'll attract females to mate with.
Placing pieces of white plastic bag knotted to resemble butterflies or butterfly shapes cut from white plastic containers spaced 1m apart throughout your tatsoi, bokchoy & kale patch could fool them into thinking this territory is already taken. The second line of defense is to interplant with strong smelling herbs and alliums amongst your plants - this can confuse the females and prevent them from laying their eggs on your precious plants. Landcress is toxic to their caterpillars so planting lots of it in amongst your leafy greens could stop their life cycle if the eggs are laid on these leaves instead.
Our good bug mix seeds are great to scatter around the veggie patch - these flowers will attract beneficial wasps which parasitize and eat the newly hatched caterpillars Nasturtiums make a great decoy trap - planted away from your veggie patch the butterflies will lay their eggs there & you can manually remove the caterpillars to feed to your chooks (if you have the time). Alternatively, you could send the kids out into the garden with butterfly nets..... and always remember, you can eat the holes in your homegrown veg.
Pull out all your leggy old broccoli, cabbages and cauliflowers - they're just a breeding ground for the White Cabbage butterflies now and start sowing chillies, capsicum, eggplant, melons, pumpkins, corn and salad greens.
We have a range of organic, heirloom, open pollinated seeds available - all ready to be planted now.
You may also like to check out our Integrated Pest Management workshop in October.
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