Foolproof Way to Kill Cabbage Worms and Cabbage Loopers!

You’re starting to find holes in the leaves of your kale, and for that matter, in your cabbage, brussels sprouts, or other brassica-family plants. The leaves of the neat rows of radishes you’ve planted are showing signs of chewing, too. Some leaves have little off-white or yellowish spots on their undersides. And you just saw a little green worm wandering over a leaf on your produce.

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you probably have cabbage worms (Pieris rapae or Pieris brassicae).

But don’t lose hope yet. I can help you to eliminate these hungry little worms from your garden, and help you figure out ways to prevent them from coming back.

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[danielasmittle]

“I don’t want them to live life anymore, I want them to be gone.” That is much nicer than what I’ve been saying about them lately! Haha.

[wadestoss]

The word Caterpillar is actually from an old French term meaning "hairy cat", which displaced the native Old English term "cawelworm" which would be "coleworm/kaleworm" in modern spelling conventions. Glad to see the notion still lives, I suppose modern farmers face many challenges they did in days of yore.

[theladyb]

“I don’t want them to live life anymore” 😂😂

[royaldrift]

Normally don't use anything except picking them off by hand. But this Autumn has seen record numbers of these bastards here thanks to long overdue rain and ideal climate conditions. Thankyou so much for this vid- you literally saved my brasica crops from the brink of destruction. 2 sprays, 7 days apart annihilated them all. Cheers from Australia 🇦🇺

[sammi-joreviews]

I bought Monterey BT last year on your recommendation. It REALLY REALLY helped my garden, esp w regards to saving many plants in my raised bed. Thank you. The raised bed helped stave off rabbits & the BT stopped these little buggers.

[heartofmythril]

The first year a ground hog ran off with my cabbage, the second year the cabbage worms ate them. This year is gonna be my year.

[Zombeefriend]

I have a bad infestation on my cabbage plant. I’m glad I found this video. Thank you.

[ltlbnsgarden]

Sweet, short and to the point, loved it. Thank you for the great tip 😊

[nottooclosepleeze]

Last year, this caterpillar was so bad that i used BT but I found that cabbage leaves are so waxy that the spray just rolls off the leaves. So I put a batch in a bowl and used a sponge to wipe all the leaves. Seemed to work.

[kathybuttermore]

"Those stupid I love it. This year I tried using a pest cloth over all of my brassicas, but those little @#!&% got to my plants anyway. I was hoppin' mad. That stuff is now on my Amazon wish list. Thank you.

[faithhunsberger]

What does this do to soil microbiology once applied? Though organic can it have a negative response for beneficial insects you're trying to attract and keep around?

[maureenparran]

Thank you for a quick thorough answer to my cabbage worm problems.

[Bindi_Marc]

For those growing leafy greens indoors can you just use this spray as a preventative measure? Or should you only use it if you spot eggs?

[amanda_pizana]

Is it dumb that this makes me feel so bad! I have been seeing these butterfly’s throughout my raised bed and I thought they were good for it, until I did more research. This is my first year, trying for a garden. I have been scraping the eggs off my leaves but this is very time consuming as half of my raised garden bed is brassica. I bought the Monterey B.t. but the thought of them starving to death, makes me feel so bad! 😭 I’m so torn right now.

[johnliberty]

Used the same product on pickle worm in my cucumber patch, they were boring their way into the cucumbers but now they just eat themselves halfway in and stop, I pull them out of their little holes in the morning. Not perfect but I can just cut out their little holes and save 99.9% of the cucumbers. This product has me confident enough to grow cabbage next year. Cabbage is great filler food

[taracriste]

I've been battling these pests so far they have been winning. I just decided to start over with my brassicas and someone suggested using mothballs hung near your brassicas and covered with a cover so they don't get wet. So that's what I've done. The mothballs are very stinky so it repels the cabbage moths before it even lands on your brassicas. I really hope this works. I've done homemade insecticidal soap with citronella, I've used potash all over my broccoli and kale, nothing is working so far. 😢😡 I really don't want to buy a chemical, I'd rather grow them under cover but hopefully this mothballs thing works

[anguslecroq]

I found a lot of these caterpillars on my plants as I brought them indoors for the winter. It was difficult to find them, but I knew there were no more on a specific plant when there was no more small round poop near it. I have put them in a plastic box with holes so they can breathe and fed them with cabbage from the supermarket. Some of them died, but at this time, one has become a moth (and passed away), and I set it free in my house 20-30 days ago. Other 2 are still caterpillars and 2 are turning into moths. The moth was pretty friendly, it did not fly away when I got near it and sometimes it would fly on my hand.
This morning I found the one moth dead in my bed, but it wasn't crushed. I researched on the internet and found out that they live 24-33 days. I just hope that the moth didn't lay eggs, because they are pretty annoying when your houseplants get destroyed by them.
I usually poison mealybugs and other pests, but I couldn't kill the caterpillars.

[shikhalemuel]

The best way to grow these veggies is by covering the plants with netting immediately after planting. Never have worms again!

[deborahmcneil]

I lost my entire crop of brussel sprouts I will try Monterey B.t.

[krisej]

Thank you so much. These things are infesting my garden. There’s been an explosion of them and they’re eating everything