When going out to check our beautiful plants we noticed that the broccoli had holes all over the leaves. With further inspection we found cabbage worms or a worm from that family secretly hiding out on the leaves. I say secretly because these worms or caterpillars are the exact same color as the plant itself and weren't more than an inch long, making them hard to spot when looking quickly. My husband and I quickly started pulling them off, which made my poor daughter cry. She just loves all creatures. She spends her summer days carrying around toads, grasshoppers, and any other living creature she can find. So the thought of us "removing" the worms just broke her heart. Anyways, I became curious to see whether or not there were other natural and cheap ways to get rid of these not so nice creatures. I found several methods:
1.) pick them off your self
2.) leave them as long as there aren't too many and hope that natural enemies will eat them
3.) get a bacteria product from LoweS or Home Depot that will only kill the worms and is safe for everything else (Dipel, bT, thuricide)
4.) spray with canned or powdered milk
5.) I've even heard some tale about leaving a cigarette in water all night and then spraying that water.... hmmmm....
6.) for prevention have floating row covers and you could place broccoli head in pantyhose
Do you have any tips? We are looking for anything safe that might work...
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