Cabbage White Butterfly

So...as it is time to sow your brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower etc) you need to be aware of several pests that they will undoubtably come across. The first will be cabbage white butterfly. Unfortunatly for you you they dont just eat cabbages...but every bassica! This is what they look like...

Then will come the eggs (the little yellow ones up the top), they are layed mostly on the underside of leaves but some will be on the top too.

Then the holes and caterpillers (they grow to be enormous!)

You can see the little caterpillers

End result=eaten, although only babies have been working on this one so far.

So your beautiful seedlings, that you just planted can end up like this really really quickly....so how to prevent it. You can go the unatural way and spray them with chemicals  :-( but i garden organically so here are a few tips

1. Save your used egg shells! Placing half eggs shells around you plants will help deter cabbage white butterfly! The butterflies think that this spot is already taken (by other cabbage white butterflies and leave it alone)

2. Builds habits/areas for predators (birds, lacewings, ladybirds etc). I will be building a bug hotel soon. Otherwise for birds have fresh water and nesting boxes

Simple Bug Hotel

Elaborate Bug Hotel

3. Check that your seedlings dont have eggs or caterpillers on it and then have a physical barrier around the plant

4. Go out there and rub off the eggs and pick off the caterpillers. If you have chickens or birds they can be a great treat...otherwise i go out with a bucket of hot soapy water and they have a swim

5. If your really getting desperate 'Dipel' is an approved organic insecticide. It is supposed to only affect caterpillers and not people or pets.

6. This one i havnt tried but apparently 1tbs Mollases to 1L water and 1tsp dishwashing liqued. Sprayed on both sides of the leaves works. Will have to try that :)

Well hopefully now you will be prepared for these little nasties!

Next Post will be on slugs and snails...ewww

January's Harvest and potting bench

Well January was an incredibly good month! Unearthed potatoes....finished the nectarines...got stuck in strawberries and blueberries! yummy! How good is it to have a proper summer...not like last year!

So here we are...the official numbers for jan

351g Strawberries
120g Nectarines
8g Raspberry
609g Blueberries!
852g Potatoes
139g Lettuce (more than that but adam doesnt weigh the lettuce he takes on his sandwiches)
107g Fig
36g Silverbeet
10g Kale
96g Eggplant (soo yummy fried!)
9g Spring Onion
187g Pepino (Small melon type fruit)
165g Corn
29g Beans
17g Capsicum
5.57KG Tomatoes!

With a grand total of

8.305KG!!!!

Things to Plant Now

So to help the gardeners out there i am going to start helping people know when is the right time to plant seeds! So for february in melbourne (and other temperate places) you should plant:

• Beans
• Beetroot
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Carrot
• Celery
• Leek
• Lettuce
• Potatoes (get them in quick)
• Radish
• Shallots
• Silverbeet
• Spring onion
• Swede
• Corn
• Zuccini

Autumn and Winter catch alot of gardners by surprise :) so they are under prepared and end up having not much of anything. Right now is when you need to be growing seedlings for all your winter crops like leek, carrots, cabbage and broccoli

Potting Bench

So for a while now ive been asking adam to build me a potting bench :) we got rid of our outdoor setting (was to big for the space) and so all my gardening stuff had been sitting on the ground! We got everything we needed from bunnings and started

Building

Building

Staining

Stained

Ready for use

This was when adam lost the drill bit...lol...we ended up getting it out with a magnet attatched to a loooong stake!

And some pics from the garden:

Australian Lime in flower

Teepee...ready for beans and snowpeas

Raspberries

Watermelon

Rainbow Chard (silverbeet)

Oh and last but not least...if you want to get my posts by email you can sign up on the right of screen :)