(With apologies to Chris Onstad for this title.)
I love butterflies and moths. I’ve purposefully picked plants because of their appeal to pollinators. I just wish they could read.
It’d be great if I could have a sign that say something, like, I don’t know. “Food is over here ->,” or “Please pollinate here,” or “I refuse to be responsible for raising your children, you absolute deadbeats.”
My issue is not, of course, with little guys like the yellow woolly bear from the other week. No. I am dealing with a decidedly human vs. cabbage white butterfly situation here and I’m pretty sure it’s the same damned bug every time.
See, my original plan was to plant a row of strawberries in one of the raised beds out front. It’s a bit late in the season for that so I figured I’d get some kale, broccoli, and rainbow chard starts instead. There was still a bunch of empty space so I also hucked in a handful of red mustard seeds that I had left over from a microgreens kit. I didn’t give too much thought toward companion planting since my selection of cold-weather crops is a bit limited. Despite this incredibly laissez-faire attitude toward horticulture, my small garden is (astonishingly) thriving.
So is all of the associated fauna, including a particularly persistent cabbage white butterfly which has anointed every single one of my brassicas with eggs and varying stages of cabbage looper. I wouldn’t mind this were it not for the fact that I need to eat those eventually. I refuse to become responsible for the offspring of this obvious delinquent.
Since I also refuse to hose my yard down with insecticide, that means that, every day, I go out there with a sponge and a jar of soapy water to physically wipe butterfly eggs off of my salad. This is hilariously futile, however, since the cabbage white butterfly follows me and deposits new eggs on the leaves I’ve just wiped off. It doesn’t seem to matter what time of day this is either — it appears out of the woodwork to laugh at me and rub its butt all over my food.
My next steps are to try to mist the leaves with BTI, horticultural soap, and diatomaceous earth, then cover them with bug netting. I’m hoping I won’t have to do this, but I also don’t want to have to continue to give my broccoli a soapy bath every day.
Next year, I’m planting an absolute assload of nasturtiums. They can have those and leave the kale alone.
Wish me luck.
Marble Crow 