Hello,
watering my plants this morning, I saw a large family of caterpillars on the nasturtium plant!
They are slender, and black and yellow. I thought they may be cabbage white, or mullein moth, but before I pluck them off, are they going to turn into beautiful butterflies and should I leave them?
I found a website which has caterpillars types, but am still not sure.
Can anyone help?
Here's the link, for those who may also have caterpillar problems..
http://www.whatsthiscaterpillar.co.uk/plates.htm

Thanks,
Jane CH

Hello Jane CH

It could be that the caterpillers are those of the Cinnabar Moth. The moth is medium sized, and has very pretty pinkish wings. Surprisingly the caterpillers are Black and yellow striped. Normally feed on groundsel and ragwort but as you have a tidy garden perhaps they like Nasturtiums for a change. Will do a little research and confirm.

Jane T

Hello again Jane CH

Have consulted my little book of moths and butterflies and the Cinnebar Moth caterpillars are very strongly marked in black and yellow but, looking further at the dreaded Cabbage white they are a sort of 'greenery yallery' with black speckly marking. I then remembered that Bob Flowerdew recommends planting nasturtiums as a sacrificial crop to protect your brassicas. I planted some nasturtiums to mix in with my climbing beans but the sllugs said 'Thank you very much' and ate the lot! Hope this helps,

Jane T

Hi Jane
i think you done the right thing leaving them alone, i noticed there are not so many butterfies and moths these days i think it is the large amounts of pesticides used endagering our wildlife. Man upsets the balance. i even felt bad about squashing the black fly on mine!
Suzie

Hi Jane,
I did read up about the cinnabar moth. I don't think it is though, I think it is a cabbage butterfly, there was one flapping about near the caterpillars, I wish it was the cinnabar moth, as I hear they are quite rare now.
Anyway, thank you for your thoughts on it. I am surprised any caterpillar wants to eat nasturtium leaves, asn they must be quite spicy!
Jane CH

Hi Jane

the caterpillars of the Large White also called Cabbage White (Pieris brassicae)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pieris_brassicae_caterpillar.jpg

are rather partial to nasturtiums.

Small White (Pieris rapae) Small Cabbage White caterpillars don't have any black on them and are a lime green with yellow markings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pieris.rapae.caterpillar.jpg these little monkies will happily munch on horseradish, nasturtium etc, seems caterpillars don't mind what they eat.

Cinnabar moths (Tyria jacobaeae) are more black and orange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tyria_jacobaeae_caterpillar.jpg they tend to munch on ragwort and its related species, that being Senecio.

If none of the above are whats causing the problem then I'll have another scout, but it sounds like one of the first two to me. The only way to get rid of them is to pick them off for me. I'm currently sharing my cabbages with slugs, snails and cabbage whites, hopefully next year they'll give me a break and move to someone elses, then come back to mine th year after that lol!

Debs

 

Hi Everybody,
It's definately a cabbage white caterpillar. I wish the birds that visit my garden would find them tasty, but they seem to prefer seeds I put out.
I try and ignore a lot of beasties, but they have demolished quite a few "crops" of mine.
I guess it's all part of the herb growing process.
Thanks anyway for all the help.
Jane CH

Hello Jane,

I have noticed over the years that blackbirds never seem to take cabbage white caterpillars, why I have no idea, we always have lots of blackbirds in our garden and when I've grown brassicas of any sort they get eaten alive with caterpillars. The only way I can protect them is covering the plants with fleece or nets. While talking of garden pests my son-in-law and daughter (not pests I might add) are at this moment planting out my 2nd sowing of courgette and winter squash plants. To protect them from slugs I've bought some mulch mats from the Natural Gardener website which I hope will help. Will let you know if they are successful.

Jane