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Gooseberry Bush Being Eaten Alive
Andrew Kenneth
Posts: 277
This is the second year running that my gooseberry bush is slowly being stripped clean of everything.
It has a plague of tiny caterpillars munching away.
I put the net on too late this year and last year I didn't use one at all.
How do I get rid of them?
Thanks
0
Posts
These will be gooseberry sawfly, have a look at this link http://rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=517
Gooseberry sawfly http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=517
I'd try using nematodes.
Good luck.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Yes sawfly!
You can pick them off by hand & squish them in the meantime, if you feel like it..... but a rotten job & you never get them all IME, sorry.
You can spray the bush, if you dont object to doing that, but again vigilance all season is needed.
BTW if there's any Solomons' Seal around check that for the same thing! J.
I have the same problem with mine. I watered mine with garlic water in the hope that the sawfly are like slugs and don't like garlic flavoured leaves, not sure if it's working yet, too early to tell. I am also checking the bushes every day and squishing the blighters. It's constant vigilance at the moment. If you have already lost most of the leaves I'd try the nematodes. Good luck.
My problem is, that I cannot get to the allotment everyday. The damage shown was done in one day!
I have probably over panicked as, I have pulled all the fruit off even though it's still not ripe.
I thought if I'm not having it neither are them little bleeders!
I can do something with it I'm sure.
The fruit'll be fine for jam
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
EXCELLENT!
To be honest, regards my problem I just can't see it being economically viable
spending £15 for a pack of nematodes just for one bush.
If, I dug the bush up and replanted elsewhere and covered with a net wouldn't this
do?
In 2011/12 the bush had no protection and wasn't attacked.
The little bu**ers pupate in the soil beneath your fruit bushes so netting them won't do any good and besides, net fine enough to thwart the sawfly will keep pollinating insects away.
The traditional way is to turn the family chickens into the fruit garden over the winter to scratch around in the soil and get the pupating grubs. I don't keep chickens any more, and luckily we've escaped the sawflies in this garden.
I don't know whether covering the soil around them with water-permeable landscaping fabric would stop the little so-and-so's
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Do these creatures munch on other veg as I have many things close by...?