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A few years ago, I grew cauliflower and broccoli in my raised beds. They did great, and I couldn’t wait to harvest them and inflict them on my family use them in lots of different recipes.
Then the cabbage worms came. Zillions of them. Since broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage are all brassicas, the cabbage worms like them all. Since I wasn’t going to spray them with chemicals, and didn’t have time before work to inspect the leaves and pick off bugs, I lost the whole crop. I was devastated (but Hubby was happy).
A few years later, I found one of these nifty gizmos in a garden catalog. It’s called a moth-blocker, and is made of really fine mesh that lets water and sun in and keeps the bugs out. The only problem–it’s $35. Ouch!
There’s no way I’m going to spend $35 to cover each plant! I could buy a lifetime of organic veggies for that price.
Then, at a recent trip to Ikea, I found the perfect solution–a cylindrical, fine mesh laundry basket priced at a reasonable $7.99. There’s a similar one on Amazon, too.
It’s not custom-made for the garden, but it should do the job quite well. I put it over half of my broccoli and cauliflower seedlings and left the rest out in the open as a control.
You can see that water and light can still get in, but the bugs can’t. The only problem might be when the plants get too big to all fit under the cover. I’ve read that you can cover the heads of the broccoli or cauliflower with an old piece of panty hose to protect them. If everything grows well, that’s a problem I’d love to have to deal with!
How do you protect your winter crops?
I had a bell pepper plant I had for two years, I babied it along during the frost-filled winter, I covered it and other plants with a huge plant cover. It was doing fairly well in May-Jun-Jul and then I walked out one night and the little bell peppers were gone. where did they go? Then I came out the next morning and the leaves were gone. What the Hell? So I looked closer and there was a BIG GREEN WORM on one of the stalks, just eating away. This thing was about the size of my husband’s thump, yeah, that big! I took the pot soil and the plant and threw it in the garbage heap. There was NO WAY I was touching that ugly thing! I think it was a cabbage worm, but this was a bell pepper plant, in a container. My tomatoes died with the first heat and then my squash plant. I wound up with no harvest, because the heat was over 100 degrees and even my lawn is dying. I am beginning to think I am not a gardener.
Just take an old flower pot cut slits in and most of pot cut out leave enough to run pantyhosethrough remaining areas in and out pattern the pit over plant with panty hose over top of the bucket with bottle cut out of course..air and water go through. Cheaper solut8on
Thanks for all your tips wish you good gardening! I am making chicken wire screens for fall plants and will be fighting squirrels also.
My poor cabbage is already gone. I couldn’t seem to pick the caterpillars off before they did their damage, since they hide inside layers of leaves not even open yet. In fact now, towards the end of summer, the cabbage head is starting to have some sticking, rotting parts. Eww. I will definitely do something like this next year!
Brilliant!
Hi, Brown Thumb Mama –
Kudos for finding a cheaper alternative! Have you considered building one of these? Even I, a first time this year gardener made it work! After you build it, you can place any of a few coverings like fine mesh, plastic for when it’s cold, etc. etc. Just another thought and hope it helps!
http://www.sunset.com/garden/backyard-projects/ultimate-raised-bed-how-to-00400000011938/page6.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/lawn-garden/build-a-raised-garden-bed-cover-15566073