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hi,I've just made a stinky brew by simmering a clove of garlic for an hour,then when cool adding a bit of washing-up liquid. Hopefully this will deter pesky butterflies from laying their eggs on my brassicas. It really does stink ! any1 else got any good recipes for pesading the bugs to go elsewhere?

plant nasturtiums nearby, they prefer them to brassicas

French Marigolds which I absolutely hate, (much prefer the good old fashioned English Marigolds) have a horrid smell and help deter bugs.

On large leaves such as brassicas I am inclined to put on a pair of rubber gloves and spend ages wiping them off.

Sue

small children with old babdminton rackets.100% effective and organic and easy to bribe

Nets. I have to net them anyway to keep the pigeons off...

Air rifle?

just saved my kale seedlings which were infested,by spraying with water in a washing-up liquid bottle,which dislodged the little blighters,picked them out and chucked them over the fence :-)may need to repeat a couple of times.middle leaves of seedlings are now sprouting like mad as outside leaves had been totally eaten.Think i'll net them next year!

grahamhobbs wrote:plant nasturtiums nearby, they prefer them to brassicas

Or, as I discovered this year, plant horseradish nearby. My nasturtiums were hardly touched but the horseradish was shredded

Kohl rabi seems to be a favourite of my local cabbage whites. They were the ones crawling with caterpillars while my kale was relatively untouched. That worked out pretty well - I knew where to look when keeping the population down and by that point in the year, the kohl rabi leaves would be pretty tough anyway while the swollen stems were left alone for me.

Wulf

And actually my nasturtiums haven't been touched either and not far from the kale (and taking over lol)

I have self seeded nasturtiums growing wildly through all my kale and PSB.

Result? Show quality nasturtiums with not a hole in their leaves.

I just keep on squidging!