Forum home› Fruit & veg
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

What do you do with caterpillars?

dancindufasdancindufas Posts: 60
edited May 2019 in Fruit & veg
My lettuce leaves have been getting munched, i assumed by slugs however this morning I've found this wee guy. How do you guys get rid of them? I dont mind  tossing slugs into the stones but feel wrong putting a wee caterpillar in danger! 😔

Posts

  • BrexiteerBrexiteer Posts: 955
     I love moths and butterflies and never dispose of a caterpillar in case I'm getting rid of one of the good uns. I just put them in another area but I'm probably putting them to doom any as there may not be a food source 
  • Hampshire_HogHampshire_Hog Posts: 1,089
    The odd one I would leave alone but with an infestation I would pick them off and move as mark says probably no food for them but they become food for the birds and their new chicks its just nature.

    "You don't stop gardening because you get old, you get old because you stop gardening." - The Hampshire Hog
  • mrtjformanmrtjforman Posts: 331
    I squashed about 12 today. I don't feel too guilty about it as I know if you just disturb them they drop to the floor and clawl back onto the plant at night. They nibbled way more of my gooseberry leaves before I found them.

    As to all you guys saying the birds will eat them anyway, yes and no, yes birds eat millions of caterpillars every day but no the ones you have moved most likely will have eaten 10 more leaves by the morning. Might as well just do the job right in the first place. Since the birds are eating way more worms around me nature will not suffer.

    I used to throw them into the neighbours garden where there is nothing to eat for them but like people have said they would just starve there or get eaten or worst yet find their way back into your garden. Squashing them is not great but they are invading your garden and its either your plants or them.



  • HelixHelix Posts: 631
    I try to prevent them getting to their target in the first place.  So there is an assault course of grit, coffee grounds and ice cream tub rings that they have to get through/over first.  If they make it then I reckon they deserve not to be squashed, so they are rehomed elsewhere. 
  • BrexiteerBrexiteer Posts: 955
    pansyface said:
    Find a plant that you don’t care much about which belongs to the same family as your treasured plants. For example, if the caterpillar is on a cabbage, find a cress plant, or honesty or rape or some other brassica and put it onto that. 

    If you are kind, generous and gentle with your wild birds they will learn to follow you around and wait for your castoffs. We have a male blackbird and a robin who do this whenever we go out of the door.

    Gooseberry sawfly are like caviar to bluetits. But the caterpillars also feed on the leaves of red currants. Redcurrant bushes grow very tall (they do here anyway) and could easily cope with the predations of a few sawflies. So put the caterpillars on a redcurrant bush instead, where the bluetits will find them.
    I grow nasturtium in the garden and it's full of cabbage white caterpillars. If they get eaten by birds that's OK if they grow into butterflies even better
  • madpenguinmadpenguin Posts: 2,543
    My daughter grows 'sacrificial' plants in her garden.Last year one kale plant was devastated but all the others only had minimal damage.She even watches wasps cut caterpillars in half fly off with it and come back for the other half!
    “Every day is ordinary, until it isn't.” - Bernard Cornwell-Death of Kings
  • BrexiteerBrexiteer Posts: 955
    Not sure I'd be watching the wasps I think I'd have a rolled up newspaper in my hand horrible things 
  • dancindufasdancindufas Posts: 60
    Thanks all, some great advice. I've not seen the wee guy from my lettuce, perhaps the birds got him 🙄. Ive been checking regularly and no signs of eggs or further damage 
Sign In or Register to comment.