Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have neglected my Gbs for a while and there is green poo everywhere.

Its seems like everything has been eaten by green caterpillars so i ripped everything out to replant. How often do you guys dipel? Some times they hide very well in the plants, what do you do when they eat from the inside out?

good question Zman, I hate those little green buggers! I've also been hammered by green shield beetles (stink bugs) this year

Wait until there is no sign of rain coming for a day or two. Give everything a good spray with a Dipel solution, making sure it's set to a very fine spray rather than large droplets that will just run off. Then while the plants are still damp from the spray I sprinkle a small amount of the Dipel powder in the centre of the cabbage, or whatever plant you are treating. Works good for me, just wish I could find something that'll sort the slugs out in the same way.

I don't have an issue with catepillars eating the plants from the inside out anymore, only slugs. Recently I even resorted to pouring a small amount of very salty water into the centre of my cabbages and lettuce, seems to help a bit but I'm still getting them.

Cheers.

I use a combination of Dipel and a 9yr old boy. He loves pulling off the caterpillars and feeding them to either the Fish or the Chooks.

I use Dipel when I notice my 9yr old isn't keeping up with the caterpillars.

I use bugs, from bugs4bugs.

Have you tried beer traps for the slugs? Plenty results from googling that and they are effective, as well as a use for that last warmish bit of beer in the bottom of a stubbie

a number of white butterfly eggs has appeared on my broccolini.
I was like Ripley discovering the egg chamber in Aliens but unfortunately I could not kill them with fire!

Hey SF,


I should've clarified at the time, but I was referring to the cabbage and lettuce in my soil garden... luckily the slugs haven't found out about my AP system yet, so the lettuce in there are fine (no cabbage in AP system, take up to much room).

In the soil garden I tried a method this year that was passed onto me by a market gardener.
I used to water my veg garden in the morning, and sometime around sunset in the late arvo. He told me if you water a bit earlier in the arvo the soil surface isn't as moist at night and this deters the slugs and snails from moving around the garden so much. So I started making the afternoon watering a couple of hours earlier.

It worked... to a degree... I didn't see anywhere near as many slugs out and about the veg garden this year. But what they were doing was climbing into the base of a cabbage or lettuce when the plants were young, then living out their lives in the one plant and not moving around the garden.

When I'd harvest a cabbage or lettuce it wasn't uncommon to find 20-30 slugs on the inside, happily munching towards the centre of the plant. They'd range in size from small juveniles to big fat mommas, so they were obviously breeding in the plants. I'd never had them so heavily populated in each plant, and do so much damage. Rather than be spread out around the garden do a little bit of damage here and there, they were concentrated in the best plants.

On a few occasions after it had rained and the soil was moist enough for the slugs to move around during the night, I tried laying the beer traps around near the base of the plants hoping to draw them out, but they weren't interested, they were obviously quite happy where they were.


... ... I think you may be drinking waaaay too slow!

Cheers!

Will try be more vigilant this time with the dipel