Natural Pest Control: Caterpillars, Aphids, Cabbageworms, Root Fly, Pigeons
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- čas přidán 10. 06. 2022
- Caterpillars carnaged your cabbages? Pigeons nibbled your veggie plot? Then you're yet another victim of a brassica massacre! There's nothing worse than the sinking feeling you get when you go out to your precious garden only to discover that pesky pigeons and creepy crawlies have eaten your dinner before you even had a chance to harvest it. We hear your cry for help! Never fear, Ben is here with his top tips for natural pest control.
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Ben simply and brilliantly explains all you need to know.
I'm a 60 + year old rookie veg gardener, and thoroughly enjoy Ben's short no waffle posts. A big thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Same here- another big thumbs up for the "no waffle" presentation and an additional one for the puns and wit!
Thanks so much guys, it's thoroughly appreciated. :-)
Ditto 😀
Ditto!
For those of us with long growing seasons, growing brassica overwinter mitigates most of the pest damage from butterflies.
Oh! - Ingenious that water pipe box contraption! Always thought these were expensive gardening center buys but it isn't! - Mind Blown!
same. loved that idea. i have an insect net that i haven't used bc I didn't have anything to net it over. bamboo sticks I have, but it wouldn't work because it will rip it. the upside down bottle is such genius, i'm going to do that this year.
Thanks for the great information Ben. I had a “brassica massacre “ of my own when the neighbours pet sheep “Jack” jumped the fence. Unfortunately he was smart enough to pull the netting off and munch the plants down to the ground!
Not much you can do about sheep I suspect, sadly!
What a nuisance! Jack be nimble and quick!
Whose that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
Or would the neighbour have worked out that you had lamb for dinner and his sheep disappeared
on a serious note an electric fence would stop the sheep.
Thanks Ben. I’ve just started veggie gardening and I’m learning heaps from your channel 🙏🏻😊
Super stuff - thanks for watching. :-)
Thank you Ben! I love the water bottle tip.
I am already using tule for some of my pots but I am holding it in place with clothes pins.
Thanks Ben, you are the best gardener on CZcams in my opinion, so happy I have subscribed. You have given me hope, my brussel sprouts, cabbage and Cauliflower got massacred last year but this video has given me hope and I have sown some cabbages and Cauliflower.
That's great to hear Marian. Hope you enjoy a great crop this time round, and thanks for subscribing.
Gosh, I so look forward to watching your enthusiasm for your gardening Ben, and absolutely welcome your invaluable advice. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom ☺️
You're very welcome - thank you for watching!
Net curtains, for the charity shop Job done,👌
this is a perfect example of an author that knows what he's doing. Right on cue, full of useful tips, onwards and upwards!...
Thanks so much! :-)
Thanks for the timely reminder Ben , I planted my Brassicas yesterday then found the netting had a hole in it so onto Amazon to order more.👍
I had a brassica massacre and I watched this way before. I've never had an issue before. I don't have pigeons I have lots of squirrels and rabbits. Every year one learns more and if you continue to ignore issues, you should not be gardening. Ty for your vids, one who feels like they know everything still learns. I'm in Wisconsin so my season is very short. Marigolds are also a great companion who deters pests. Ty again.
Thanks Heidi. Gardeners are always learning!
A Brassica-Massacre!? Amazing
Thanks Ben.. You showed me a couple of options I hadn't thought of.
So pleased the video was helpful. 😀
Thank you for the great suggestions! Happy gardening!😀😀😀😀😀😀
Great video yet again, thank you. I have to net literally everything in my garden until they start to flower. ! But it’s peace of mind!
Peace of mind counts for a lot Deirdre.
Great advice. Thanks much.
No matter how many videos I watch I just keep learning something new from Ben. Love the bamboo corners with water pipe bent over the top for a temporary poly tunnel, excellent as always.
Thanks so much. Happy gardening! :-)
Thank you Ben. Fantastic video.
Wonderful information as always. Thank you!
Well done video! Lots of helpful advice! I always enjoy your videos. Thank you!
Best channel on gardening ever! Love your motivation and inspiration! Thank you❤
Thanks so much Pati - really appreciate your support. :-)
I've lost all my broccoli and cauliflower in the last two months. When I pulled them up they had very little roots . Grubs!!! But after watching this video maybe it was the flies you where talking about. The stocks of the plants got very soft and then they died. I'll give the netting a go. Thanks for all you do. Fingers crossed on the new plants I just planted.
Yes, it sounds like cabbage root maggot/fly. Netting them should help.
@@GrowVeg thank you
Que bonitoooo! Me encanta como lo tiene de bien organizado,
Thanks so much Ben, you are always a ton of help!😊
Thanks Jill. :-)
Great advice, thank you. Bird feeding also helps keeping the birds out off the greens. In wintertime birds sometimes nibble on my salads or other greens. Now i have no problems on the salads because of feeding them. 😊💚🌱🐞
Smart move Christiane.
I give my waste feed from my budgies to the wild birds being up to 15 ring neck doves and they have never eaten by plants.
and they have never eaten my plants. and I forgot about the thirty sparrows that also eat the seed rather than my plants
An excellent video! Love your fun playing with words. I am very familiar with brassica massacres, unfortunately.
An all-too-familiar experience!
Thank you, Ben! I was on a "search and destroy" mission in my lupin flowers just yesterday 😂 it's my first year planting anything so I was shocked by how much the catapillars loved my flowers. Thank goodness, they didn't touch any of the veggies! Thank you so much for this video! Saving all the tips for the next year of gardening! ❤️❤️
Glad your veggies are safe!
Thanks Ben for the good advice. I really enjoy your channel and look forward to your new videos. Cheers.
Thanks so much for watching. :-)
Just a warning on barrier nets. Birds can get tangled in them.
Love your channel so much generous info for home gardeners. Have learnt so much and thank you for giving so many alternatives.
That’s great to hear. Thank you for watching. :-)
War!!!!!
Many don't know about true battles.
Protect the garden!!!!
Absolutely!!!
Fantastic tips. Thank you
Thank you
Good advice 👍
Netting is the best solution. It's quick, efficient, and instantly effective. Planting deterrent plants requires the time and resources for them to grow. Thank you for the vid.
Yes, I think with brassicas netting or insect mesh is much the easiest solution!
I liked this so much I shared it to Facebook.
Wonderful - thank you for sharing!
Another great video Ben. Yes pests want their share of our vegetables. Good advice & tips how to deal with the pests.
They usually get their share as well David!
These videos are like a Bible for me , thank you so much Ben for your wisdom and always great budget friendly tips !
So pleased you're finding them helpful Jessica. :-)
Great ideas! Thank you for all your advice and knowledge behind your videos. This is truly helpful for myself who is a wannabe gardener.
If you grow one plant. You aren't a wannabe, you're doing it just fine
GROW GROW GROW
Enjoy the whole process of growing - it's life affirming and fantastically good for you all round! :-)
Thanks so much for this great knowledgeable tidbit.😊👌🌱🐛
Thanks Ben! I look forward to your boost of positivity each week. I love brassicas - especially broccoli - but stopped trying to grow them because of the pests but also because I was never able to get the actual broccoli flower to grow. Maybe you can do a video on that someday! I’m in northern Virginia, USA so it might just be too hot here..
They do love it cool, so that may be the issue. Mine are just about to reach the point of harvest - they've grown so quickly. But it hasn't been too hot.
Grow them as a fall crop. Take your average first frost date and count backwards using the days to harvest on the seed packet. Start them a week or two before the calculated and transplant them out when they're ready. Keep them covered with mesh but the bugs here in the US are not as aggressive later in the season. Don't worry about frost-a light kiss won't hurt them and will even sweeten them up. Good luck and happy gardening.
What pests are you getting? There is new science uncovering what pests cause problems and why.
Most insect pressure is a sign of poor photosynthetic efficiency ergo poor health/ stress.
Learning how BRIX can indicate the potential for insect pressure is worth investigating I feel. How to increase the BRIX levels of our plants is the skill that will help us avoid having to insert added materials, energy and inputs
Great ideas, thank you!
Helpful advice, thanks for sharing! 💚🌱
So informative!!!
Love your videos! Encouraging and informative. Thank you.
Thanks Connie.
Good idea about their use in the compost heap! I do collect the masses of snails we have and make sure I take them quite far away as I know tests have been done and they are able to return to the same spot if you just remove them to close by! Interesting to hear about the RHS trial of snail and slug barriers!
I have most of my plants covered in Tulle! Birds get their feet caught in the bird netting, which is why it's used in some countries to capture them. Unfortunately, the birds can lose their legs or end up so trapped that they die in it.
I agree and that's what I don't want either. I find if you go for the slightly better quality netting (the black one that Ben showed in the video), then that should minimise the problem over really cheap netting though.
I triex bird netting last year, not knowing this and a bird had its neck broke. I tossed it out. It was horrible.
Excellent tips. Thanks
Thanks for the suggestion about using tulle as insect netting. I had worried about the cost and availability of the "real" stuff. Genius!
Great video. Thank you. Looking forward to your next video. 👍
Wonderful! Ty!🧚♀️
Big thanks to this video Ben! So many of these pests have been progressively showing up on our farm in southern Ontario Canada… now have some resolutions for this upcoming week :)
Great stuff - hope you manage to get the upper hand on them again.
BT is available in Ontario and my experience with it has been fantastic for any kind of worm or caterpillar. Will be extra careful not to spray anything else.
Perfect video
And very timely!
Great stuff
Brilliant tips and advice, as ever Ben.👌
Thanks Priscilla. :-)
Very helpful, thank you!
I appreciate your suggestions. Last year we tried tulle, as it was cheaper by the yard than netting. However, it is so flimsy, the squirrels and chipmunks tore right through it, and it often snagged, ending in a holey mess that had to be discarded. We try to avoid plastic here, so that was frustrating. By the end of the season, we simply went back to the thicker netting, though still plastic, will last a few more seasons. Rabbits can squeeze through a hole of 1" or more. For squirrels and chipmunks you need a full hooped enclosure or a box with 1/2" netting. We cut down branches and trim them to use as hoops instead of plastic or purchased materials. Most of your building materials can be gleaned from smaller trees in the woodlot, and round wood is your friend, lasts decades rather than bought lumber, which lasts a year or two.
Well done on doing so much to avoid plastic. I think any plastic in any covering you use is worth it if it helps you get more of a crop.
Great video Ben. Learned lots of new tips.
Cheers Liam. :-)
Thank you Mr Ben : )
Thanks Ben to help with the brassica massacre - we've got pigeon attack at the moment.
Always love the videos
Such good info
Thank you SIR for your information. 👋
Thanks Ben! I have some leftover netting from my Halloween costume. I'm going to use that on my Brassicas this season. 😊
Very beautiful full greenery and fresh air
Brassica family: member of the family of vegetables that includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, and turnups. Also called cruciferous vegetable.
I bought the gauzy IKEA curtains and use those to cover my strawberry beds years ago. Recently I used bird netting and the darn birds land on the netting and peck at the strawberries. So it's back to using the gauzy curtains! And to keep birds from getting caught up in it I hang strips of tin foil and anything that rattles to warn them off.
Great idea. Sounds like the gauzy curtains are just the ticket!
Great video! Thanks 👍
Thanks again
Last year I fought and lost to the cabbage moths/worms despite BT, neem oil, etc. My daughter & I used your brassica protection plan this fall 2022 with the bamboo canes, turned over plastic bottles to support fine insect netting.... and it's working splendidly!! Thank you, from Georgia, USA I took pics to post but I don't see how to post them.
So pleased you've had success with this Donna, that's great news!
Higgledy piggledy😂 love it. Getting pumped up for this upcoming growing season!
Great stuff Kurt!
Enjoy watching keep us smiling !
Hi Ben, thank you very much for your top tips 👍
And thank you for watching Yanee. :-)
Gordon Ramsay has some excellent ideas about dealing with pigeons.
Excellent and delicious I'm sure!
Very informative video Ben thank you. You really are a know it all.🤣 Joking aside you do explain very well and know your stuff.
Hi Ben, I recently bought a vegepod from the Chelsea Flower Show, which has a domed lid for maximum light, with some sort of mesh that nothing can get through. It's the medium vegepod and is a metre square with about 36 inches of growing space either way. As I had already planted my other vegetables I've sown some turnips, kohl rabi and cauliflower, although I will only be able to get 2 or 3 cauliflowers squeezed in. It also has a water reservoir below the soil so you can go on holiday for up to 2 weeks. I'll keep you posted on how I get on. This is so exciting!
That's really super to hear Julia. Very best of luck with it and keep me posted. :-)
Like the bottles!
I’m a novice gardener and planted brassicas first time in my new allotment. I think I’m already experiencing brassica massacre as all my brassicas been eaten by birds and a few left over leaves are ridden with pests 😞 But thank you very much for this very useful video. This will help me next time
Sorry to hear of your loss. Such a shame! Next time you will have a fantastic crop hopefully.
brassica massica explains it perfectly @!!I have never heard of garlic mustard in Australia..sounds nice!! great video!
Cheers Melanie. :-)
Lots more mega tips. Thanks. X
You are very good at what you do.
Thank you! :-)
I've also used net curtains from the Op Shops.
Hitting up fabric stores at the end of holidays is a great way to get deals on tulle by the yard. It's polyester, comes in all sorts of colors, and easy to work with. It can also be less than $1 a yard if you guy it on those post holiday sales. Makes great covers and barriers.
Smart move!
Great tip!
Tip, make sure you garden on a garden complex. Your neighbour's will get the insects, you'll just have a couple aphids and mayhaps a dove or two.
Update on my tomato, it's growing strong and I even have the beginnings of a couple little ones. Super proud plant papa right now
Great work!
great video thanks ben! definitely need to get some 5mm mesh netting by next year :)
Ben try using scaffold netting it's cheap and you can ask scaffold workers for there old netting
Great idea, thanks! :-)
Excellent problem today!!🌄
Thanks so much for this video! I learned so much! Alhamdulillaah. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Great to hear that. Thanks for watching. :-)
Great video Ben 😍 I didn’t know brassicas had soooo many pests! At least they do go out of season eventually. Will definitely try the collars. Do you just wash the whitefly off the Kale if they get in? It’s the main reason I’m nervous to grow it again.
If they get in it can be hard to get rid of them. You could certainly try blasting them off with a strong jet of water. If they get your kale then the winter cold usually finishes them off so the kale can grow away unmolested.
We have been on a double edge sword here it’s been so wet and cold we barely have any cabbage whites about but the same cold and wet is stunting our growing season. But hubby built me a huge brassica house 😂😂. Peas and brassicas loving the cool wet. Thank you for sharing 🐝 safe
That's very kind of your hubby!
Great idea! I want to use right now just in case:)
I know that many people double net the brassicas though - pests can lay eggs on the netting next to the plants and they get through that way.
Thanks Ben! White and yellow butterfly caterpillars always feast on my brassicas. I will protect some of them this year and leave some for their dinner because my husband love butterflies. 😊❤️🙏
That sounds like a fair compromise.
you could collect the caterpillars into a jar and then feed them and watch them turn into butterflies
Another huge nugget of valuable info
Top man ! ( you should write a book😉)
On (another) of piste but related matter... The slugs are getting a bit rowdy in my back garden 😂
Thanks so much! Have you seen our slug-busting video? czcams.com/video/VJvUwkFZeOM/video.html
@@GrowVeg if it’s the beer traps then yes..... there’s now a big slime trail to the local kebab house , I think they’ve gone!
thank you
4:19 lost me lolol. My American ears could not comprehend
I’ve used insect net for yrs for brassica. Works well for me.
I love your videos. So educational and friendly ❤. Can you do a late winter 🥶 garden starter? 😊
Thanks so much Brenda, appreciate that. Look out for our video on New Year's Eve on getting started with a new garden. :-)
11:11 Good tip for not poking my ole eyes out :)
This year my worst pest was grasshoppers.They came in a swarm and stayed all summer to eat their way through my whole garden. I covered crops with tile and to my horror the next morning there were huge holes in the netting where they had eaten that too .Next year I must have a plan in place. Window screen netting? I’ve never had this problem before, maybe they won’t come back. Gardening is always a learning process.
Oh wow, that sounds like a challenging summer you’ve had. Hopefully there visit is a one off!