Your comments and tips

05 Feb 12, Kimmy (Australia - temperate climate)

I bought net covers used to protect food from flies ($2 each at the $2 shop) to cover my young plants. Works a treat! Allos sum and rain in but keep bugs out. Protects from white butterflies, snails & slugs without harming them (which is important to me). Once plants a strong enough against attacks, I remove the cover and pop it over other young transplants. Wouldn't cover veges that need bugs to pollinate of course but works well for all others. Hope that helps.

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01 Mar 12, Leo (Australia - temperate climate)

Spray some neem oil or a mix of neem and tea tree oils, diluted in water, once a week. It keeps the caterpillars and other insects at bay. Other "organic" options include Dipel (Bacillus Thuringiensis) or Derris dust. I usually stick to neem but use a bit of Dipel occasionally.

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01 Oct 12, Linda (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

I tried everything - eggshells,solar powered flapping butterflies, pepper, garlic plants, etc. The caterpillars still ate my brassicas. I've discovered two things that work. You can plant Chinese cabbage to grow over winter when there are no white butterflies about. This works wonderfully well. The other thing is to cover them with a netting tunnel. We made a high tunnel over the whole garden bed this spring and I'm growing cabbages, kale, etc in a place the butterflies can't get into. We made the tunnel with electrical conduit pipes stuck into metal pipes. If it's ground crawling grubs, such as slugs, use coffee grounds around the plants.

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11 Nov 11, Barrie (Australia - temperate climate)

Why have my cabbages gone to seed before they were formed properly. Planted seedlings early October

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11 Nov 11, Dee (Australia - temperate climate)

Hi Barrie From what I understand, cabbages usually bolt to seed due to stress - mainly heat / water stress. The same thing happened to mine

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26 Jul 12, steven (Australia - temperate climate)

yes i had a similar problem and it mainly seemed to be when it was extra hot weather and thus water is lower because of evaporations .

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27 Nov 11, Rex (New Zealand - temperate climate)

I wonder if you can tell me if cabbages can resow themselves ? I have cabbages growing along my fence a long way away from my garden so don't know how they come to be there

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12 Mar 12, Chris (Australia - temperate climate)

Hi, I also have had my cabbage leaves eaten by the hungry little blighters. I have cut the really damaged leaves off to assist with healthier growth to the ones remaining. Is that the right thing to do though?

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24 Mar 12, pierrot (Australia - temperate climate)

If you like to stay organic, spread some chili oil ( or tabasco ) mixed with water regularly

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26 Mar 12, Elina (United Kingdom - warm/temperate climate)

Hello, thank you for your advice. Do you spread the tabasco mixture around the plants or on the plants themselves? Many thanks in advance!

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