Grub hunting

I’ve had a most marvellous morning: hunting bugs. Well grubs really.   I have decided to do another quadrant of the vegetable garden and that means the cabbage patch.

It’s a ravished area of mess. I dare not post a picture of the before shot. Well, here it is.   Despite netting, the cabbage moth butterflies get in and lay their eggs.

I was thinking this problem over this morning in the blazing sunshine.   Estelle rarely has any cabbage moths in her potager, and I never see any cabbage patches covered to protect them around Vernoux.   So I suspect I am part of the vicious circle.   They lay their eggs, I uproot the cabbage plants at the end of the season; they overwinter, hatch and it all starts again.   And being so isolated on this mountain top they have all the feed they need in my garden.   They don’t stray far because there is no far.   I must ask Ine when next she visits whether she had problems with the butterflies.

I remember the very first year of this vegetable garden planting cavollo nero plants as a mini hedge all along the paths.   Bless the lure of the gorgeous books which show you pretty potagers. I must have nicked the idea from one of those.   Well it didn’t take long before my lusty tall cabbage plants were caterpillar hotels. Devastating. Especially as I used to be squeamish about grubs.

Hah! I whooped for joy when I found them today. My tally (and you don’t want to know what I did with them) is three caterpillars and a slug.

There are very few plants left in the entire patch that aren’t ravaged.   But I’ll keep them nonetheless. Otherwise there is just too much bare soil.

I believe there are plenty more plants up at the top vegetable plants, but I haven’t been up there for days. And I must cut down the asparagus soon.