Cabbage butterfly moth thing seen in yard!!! FOY

Wow!  Seems so early in the season.  The one I saw was on the ground at first, walking/futzing around -- I wonder if s/he was newly emerged from inside the backyard!  Flew away eventually.

Therefore, I ran inside and quickly netted all of the relevant hardies (they're still in their small pots).

Little green caterpillar found ON the kale tulle cover (central bed)

Interesting!  Found a little green caterpillar which I would assume is the cabbage butterfly's doing, on TOP of the double-layer of tulle over the kale in the central bed.  Relocated him/her.

Did a harvest of kale after that and didn't notice any worms inside the tulle..... fingers crossed...  Though I had been a little delinquent in harvesting enough to keep them completely from touching the tulle -- but not badly...

I think the tulle buffer is working -- have seen multiple cabbage moths, none landed/laid

Fingers crossed, but so far it seems to be good in terms of success by making sure the target plants aren't touching the tulle.  The moths flutter and flutter, and circle and circle, but haven't been landing (at least, from what I've seen).

I do think that one oddball caterpillar a few weeks ago must have been one who spent the winter there somehow.

 

Cabbage moth fluttered around but I didn't see her land on any of the tulled host plants

... though I didn't see her full visit.  But still, what I did see she showed no interested in the tulled plants -- I've been harvesting leaves etc. to ensure the host plants aren't touching the tulle.

Added second layer of tulle to both broccoli beds and the dwarf kale-chard bed

I just couldn't bear the thought of using floating row cover as a second layer and not being able to peer inside without pulling it aside...  So I'll use this as a trial year, to see if my dual strategy of never letting the brassica plants touch the tulle, plus using a double layer of tulle, might work.

Fingers crossed!

White cabbage moth seen!!

FOY.  I havenèt yet added a second layer é row cover to buffer the tulle, but the plants are still small so good margin, so hopefully the mothès visit was fruitless... 

And another cabbage butterfly in tulled zucchini

Samed zuke pair as last time (west bed's north pair).

Another cabbage butterfly in different tulled zucchini!

This time also in the west bed, but the north pair (which is also next to the broccoli bed).

2 cabbage butterflies inside a tulled zucchini bed!!! Must have hatched from kale leaf used as mulch?

I highly doubt they would have been motivated to crawl underneath the tulle given it was just zucchinis inside.  So, I'm guessing they were eggs/caterpillars on kale leaves when I used some to mulch a while back, then emerged this morning as these two butterflies.  It's the two zukes in the west bed, southmost part -- which is right next to the broccoli bed, so maybe they wormed their way in that way instead... 

White Cabbage Moth laid eggs on the uncovered Waltham broccoli

Saw the moth fluttering around the Wathams, checked and sure enough there were some eggs.  So, removed the eggs and placed the tulle.