Diseases & Pests
Cornell University Vegetable Disease Fact sheets
Amazing list! Start your search here.
Heirloom vegetables from A-W are listed here. You will find descriptions and pictures of diseases and pests that effect your heirloom vegetables.
Tomato Problem Solver
Excellent!!! This is a great web page from Texas A&M to look at if you are having problems with your heirloom tomatoes. Great, easy to see pictures, descriptions and what to do about it.
Insect Pest
The Cabbage White Butterfly
We have all seen these graceful small white butterflies hovering above our gardens, but few people know they are the culprits for great destruction in cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower and other brassicas. The cabbage While Butterfly has the distinctive black dots in the upper corners of both wings.
These pesky critters are native to Europe and were brought into Canada in the 1860s where they quickly spread. Now they plague our gardens every spring and fall in great numbers.
The females lay eggs underneath the leaves and soon tiny little green caterpillars hatch out. When small, they remain on the underside of the leaves chewing tiny little holes through your cabbage leaves, but soon they grow large enough to move into the cabbage head and burrow to the center. They devour entire cabbage heads! Pull back the underside of th
e leaves that have small holes and look very carefully. They are tiny at first, so you have to look very close (see pic on right). You may also see yellow eggs in clusters or the chrysalis stage. Be sure to remove and destroy them as well.
They do have predators like wasp, yellow jackets and of course birds, but their green camouflage keeps many from becoming a meal. I find if you go out early in the morning while there is still on on things, you will find the on top of the cabbage heads munching away. As the sun comes out and do predators, they migrate deeper in the cabbage head making them more difficult to spot.
To control them you can use row covers, garlic/hot pepper spray, bt Bacillus thuringiensis or do like I do and get a giant butterfly net. Yes, you heard right! I spend about 15
minutes a day catching butterflies over my fields. The neighbor at the farm gets a great kick out of watching me from her horse barn. She says “now that is organic pest control at its finest”. LOL Well, it works. No butterflies means no caterpillars and it does bring out the kid in you. Now that is great garden therapy!
Pictures: In the top right photo you see the tiny caterpillars that just hatched already chewing small holes in a cabbage leaf. The picture to the left, is a bit older. It is at this stage that they move from the underside of cabbage leaves to the inside. Finally, the photo at the right shows a full grew chewing machine. About an 1″-2″ and as you can see causing lots of damage. At this point they can burrow into a cabbage head and ruin the whole head. Most of the time there will be more than one.
The Cucumber Beetle
Solutions for Cucumber beetles
Excellent site for information on Cucumber Beetles.