Cabbage butterflies herald the spring, but their caterpillars, hatching from hundreds of eggs laid during a single spring day, are among the most terrible of pests. They attack cruciferous plants from the Brassicaceae family – cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, bok choy, nasturtium and others. The most successful control is prevention.
When you spot these lovely white butterflies, check the undersides of leaves of cabbage and other plants from the Cruciferae family for eggs, a concentration of yellow pinheads, and destroy them with the pressure of your thumb.
photo courtesy, Keith Naylor, bugwood.org
If the caterpillars have already begun to eat leaves, only manually removing them or an organic insecticidal spray will get them off. Please don’t use poison as they CAN be controlled organically!
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