Ew! Worms on broccoli

[tylianna]

I just harvested a lot of broccoli today for lunch, cooked it up, and was about to serve it when I noticed 1/2" worms on them. What are these, and what is a good organic way to keep these OFF my broccoli?

I may or may not be able to eat any broccoli for a while!

[LindsayArthurRTR]

prolly cabbage worms (kinda fuzzy) or cabbage loopers (smooth). Been seeing lots of little white or light green Butterflies/moths?

The first time I ever grew cole crops, they were so infested that the worm totally defoliated everything I had in that family. This was 8 years ago. I dusted with sevens to no avail. I have never seen so many caterpillars

This year I tried again. Grew just some broccoli and the local greenhouse had some romanesco seedlings, so I tried them too. I started really early, and I got to get a few good heads before the worms hit. Even after they hit, I was still able to get some of the side shoots off of the broccoli before it bolted. They had some worms in them, but I just soaked the heads in the sink, filled with salt water for about 15-20 minutes. It brought the worms out of the heads.

I see a lot of post on here about Bt sprays. I don't want to use anything in my garden, so I just killed any and all white butterflies and worms that I could, by hand squishing and soaking in salt water after harvest. I obviously didn't get them all. I just pulled the plants that were mostly infested I still have a few of the romanescos and they have bolted They are attracting all kinds of beneficials. If you decide to spray, you should do so after the bees have gone for the day. I have interplanted my heat tolerant coles (collards) with my tomatoes. I have read that the combination repels insect that prey on both, so that may be something you look into for next years crops. Will also give you something to take up all that space in between your may-moes (tomatoes ).

Hope this helps

Here is a link on Bt sprays:
[url]https://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/BTgen.pdf[/url]

[tylianna]

Thanks. I did the sevin route last year on my veggies, but if I'm growing my own veggies, why would I want pesticides on them?

Do soap sprays work, I wonder?

[applestar]

For future reference, if you soak the broccoli in a deep bowl or pot of water with some salt, vinegar, or lemon juice added, most of the caterpillars as well as aphids and other residents will come out of hiding. Put a plate on it and weigh it down with something so entire head is under water.

[LindsayArthurRTR]

Bt is an organic remedy. Soap sprays and horticultural oil spray may be effective, but they are still pesticides. They are organic too I haven't sprayed anything on my plants this year, but then again, I haven't had any really bad infestations...YET. Cuke beetles are givin me a run for
my money, but are controlable right now. Your question was how to keep them off your broccoli. IMO, Other than handpicking, Bt is the next safest, most effective control of this particular type of critter.

You can still eat what you've got, you just need to soak the heads in salted water to get the bugs off.

[tylianna]

I can't bring myself to eat it when I know they've been crawling around in there lol

[applestar]

OK, OK.
I'm convinced after this spring's experiment that protecting them with netting is the ONLY way to go. I posted a photo of the protected cabbages here:
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=144893#144893

It turned out that ONE cabbage butterfly got in. By the time I realized, one of the Early Jersey Wakefields were full of holes -- found 5 caterpillars and the dead butterfly (yeah, it's actually a butterfly). But the other ones are still safe. (whew!) So be vigilant about checking even under the netting.

A silver lining, though -- there was a cole seedling (Don't know what it is yet the other ones were transplants, but I scattered seeds too. What label or make note of what kind of seeds? Nah. ) that was growing right next to the damaged one, languishing, so removal of the affected head is giving it the light and space to grow.

Not 3 feet away, across the walkway, THIS is going on
[img]https://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll272/applesbucket/Image7366.jpg[/img]
I counted 18 this morning....

[Tilde]

For future reference, if you soak the broccoli in a deep bowl or pot of water with some salt, vinegar, or lemon juice added, most of the caterpillars as well as aphids and other residents will come out of hiding. Put a plate on it and weigh it down with something so entire head is under water.

What if I soak the whole plant in water with a bit of lemon juice or vinegar - not quite enough to killl it?

Bought a pretty big starter plant at a bigbox store over the weekend - two feet root to top. All the plants at the store had hoely leaves but this was the best looking one and I killed all the little white things on the leaves before I left the store (I'm sure security loved the leaf fondler on aisle 3) .... can I be SURE by semi-drowning it before I plant it in the ground (one of the few things I'm likely not container planting this year)?

edit nevermind I peeked in at the plants over a lunch break and there was still one little blurb on the plant - it flew off. I missed it, darnit. Whitefly.

But I may yet just drown all my starter plants briefly before I pot them. Maybe hand-wrap the balls in newspaper and then submerse them a minute or so.