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Gary350
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Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Butterflies, white, yellow, orange, black, ???

I am finding no butterfly information online about what these are and what they do to our garden? Every time my computer updates it is easier to find advertisements & harder to find information I am looking for.

I see a lot of 1" white butterflies, they fly a none stop random zig zag pattern all around the garden many times before deciding where to land. They land for 1/2 a second then they are flying around all over the garden again. All the butterflies are beautiful but I have heard talk about white ones being BAD for the garden. What do you know about white butterflies?

I see a few yellow & orange butterflies the same size as the white butterflies they fly the same random zig zag pattern. What do you know about these 2 butterflies?

I sometimes I see black butterflies with 2" wings that have light color markings on their wings. What do you know about these?

I have not seen any 2" orange butterflies with black markings yet this year. What are these?

What damage do they do and do they lay eggs?

I notice white butterflies will fly around the garden several times returning to the same plants over and over so I got a, chair, large hat, big glass of ice tea, shop vac and set down near the boc choy and cabbage, relaxed and waited. It took about 3 minutes for the white butterfly to return & it took me 1/2 second to suck it into the shop vac. LOL. I looked up and here comes another white butterfly from the neighbors yard. There is an endless supply of white butterflies and not so many of the others.

I don't want to spend my day sucking up butterflies so we are going to the river to jump in an get wet its almost 90 degrees already.

I have never worried about butterflies in the past but this year I was thinking more about butterflies, are they a problem & what to do?

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

White ones are cabbage whites, and as you have noted, they will go after any cabbage as well as mustard family crops — including Broccoli, mustard, radish, turnip. Nasturtiums, too. You should probably check them for eggs and green velvety caterpillars if they are landing on them.

Yellow/orange ones are sulfurs. I think they like stuff like Baptista.... maybe peas and beans too? I can’t remember.

Black with light color — this could be Mourning Cloak which overwinters and is first black butterflies I see — they like spoiled fruit, or Black Swallowtail — carrot family — dill, celery, parsley. There are other kinds of black swallowtails — but not so much near the veg garden. Another similar and I can’t tell unless I look with binoculars for pattern detail is Red Spotted Purple.

Black with orange — you must be thinking of Monarch Butterflies — there is a website where you can monitor their migration patterns — Journey North. They only use milkweed for larval host plant. Or maybe Viceroys ... or Fritillaries if you really mean orange with black.


...I like this website for general reference and regional sightings — https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org

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Gary350
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Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

applestar wrote:White ones are cabbage whites, and as you have noted, they will go after any cabbage as well as mustard family crops — including Broccoli, mustard, radish, turnip. Nasturtiums, too. You should probably check them for eggs and green velvety caterpillars if they are landing on them.

Yellow/orange ones are sulfurs. I think they like stuff like Baptista.... maybe peas and beans too? I can’t remember.

Black with light color — this could be Mourning Cloak which overwinters and is first black butterflies I see — they like spoiled fruit, or Black Swallowtail — carrot family — dill, celery, parsley. There are other kinds of black swallowtails — but not so much near the veg garden. Another similar and I can’t tell unless I look with binoculars for pattern detail is Red Spotted Purple.

Black with orange — you must be thinking of Monarch Butterflies — there is a website where you can monitor their migration patterns — Journey North. They only use milkweed for larval host plant. Or maybe Viceroys ... or Fritillaries if you really mean orange with black.


...I like this website for general reference and regional sightings — https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org
I inspected my cabbage & broccoli this morning there are few holes in leaves. I inspected both sides of all leaves no caterpillars. I have seen lots of white cabbage butterflies also solid yellow & solid orange butterflies the same physical size as the white butterflies. I have seen a few Monarch too no telling how many have been & gone that I never saw. Red birds are in my garden all morning before it gets hot about 12 noon and in the evening when temperatures cool down about 5 pm. Last summer I only found 3 horn worms on the tomato plants they are easy to find when I notice a tomato plant that suddenly has no leaves there has to be a horn worm there some place. Last year I had a problem with 1000s of micro small gray color bugs mites on the under side of tomato leaves I need to keep a close eye for those this year. Those tiny gray bugs make 100s of small Black places on the leaves that soon kill the leaves nothing I tried got rid of those bugs. This year I will try 2% milk spray. I would like to know what causes those tiny gray bugs it would be nice to stop the problem before it happens. Horn worms are camouflaged very well maybe that is why birds don't eat them, they are very large worms too not sure a small bird could eat one. I found a large wolf spider yesterday I got it to climb onto a stick then I moved it to the potato plants where maybe birds can not find it and eat the spider. I found a cute little jumping spider on my car window I moved it to the garden too. I wish I had a bushel basket of spiders that would take care of bugs until birds eat them all. I seldom have bugs in the garden I think it is because there are so many birds.

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

I’ve watched red birds - cardinals - inspecting broccoli leaves and leaving with several green morsels, but the smaller birds like wrens are better at getting between those leaves and stems. Yellow jackets and paper wasps are also regular cabbage patch hunters of cabbage worms.

Cardinals will hunt hornworms. I’ve watched them flitting through tomato foliage day after day, as well as suddenly stopping on point, like a bird dog, then pouncing on a tomato branch, landing on the path below, securing the catch in his beaks, and fly off. :()

Grey pests — black places like rotting leaves?

...maybe Three-lined Potato beetle larvae, or Clavate Tortoise Beetle larvae. They were eating the leaves and carrying and covering themselves in poop. The poop left on the leaves promotes rapid deterioration. I only inspect and hand pick eggs and beginning clusters of the gray larvae — they always eat together in groups. It’s best to get them in the first round and knock down their numbers — if you don’t the following generations completely demolish the foliage.

Subject: Spotted and striped cucumber beetles
applestar wrote:That's a kind of a potato beetle -- NOT the more familiar Colorado Potato beetle. Let me see... ah ha! -- THREE-LINED potato beetle :arrow: https://extension.unh.edu/resources/fil ... ep1517.pdf
Subject: Potatoe- Black Sludge/RedOrange Bug
applestar wrote:The sludge could also be this guy -- their larvae camouflage themselves by piling poop on their backs. I had a really bad infestation on potatoes one year when I didn't realize what they were initially and let them get out of hand :x

Subject: Mealybug? Eggplant leaf
6sparkpug6 wrote:Hi-

So a year later, I finally found out what this bug is (not the white one but the one in the second batch of pictures). Turns out that it is was clavate tortoise beetle larva and it is now a clavate tortoise beetle, attached below.

I just wanted to let everyone know in case someone has the same problem. Thank you for your help apple :)


Image



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