Content:
- What Are Caterpillars?
- What Kind of Damage Can Caterpillars Cause?
- Are Chemical Pesticides a Possible Option?
- The Homemade Caterpillar Killer
- Before We Say Goodbye
Everything seems to be growing perfectly in your garden at first sight; the tomatoes are growing fast and strong, the onions are swelling up like balloons… However, as you walk a bit further, where you have just planted the new cabbages, you notice something isn’t exactly as it should…
First, you spot that the leaves have little holes in them; then, as you get closer, you find out why: little caterpillars have been eating away at them. “If they go on like this, I’m not gonna have any cabbages for me,” you think, “what can I do?” Before reaching for expensive pesticides, learn how to make your own homemade caterpillar killer.
Your first thought is to read up on the little animals and check if they can really pose a problem for your crops. In the end, you are a reasonable person and you don’t want to disturb animals that are totally harmless, to you and to your plants.
Actually, so e little creatures (from beetles to butterflies, from ladybirds to bees) are actually beneficial to wildlife and even crops. Some eat pests, others pollinate, etc. So, before making the wrong decision, you decide to get some proper information. So, here you are…
What are Caterpillars?
Caterpillars are larvae, which means small, soft tissued ‘children’, whose main aim is to eat as much as they can so that they can reach a size that will allow them to transform into adults. The adults, though, look nothing like the kids; in fact, they are butterflies!
They are, in fact, one of those wonders of nature which still leave many people gawping with admiration, and which still have not found a full scientific explanation.
Anyway, after eating away at soft leaves for most of their lives, and having grown enormously, caterpillars find a sheltered spot of their choosing and start producing a thin, silky thread (silk is actually produced from some of these creatures), which they weave around their body, to for, a chrysalis (some of these have amazing shapes).
The caterpillars lie in there, where their body literally melts down and rebuilds itself into that of a butterfly or of a moth. It’s one of the great miracles of nature. Now, very often, the adults live in close symbiosis (a relationship of mutual help) with the plants whose very leaves the larvae have fed on.
So, the cabbage butterfly, also known as cabbage white (or Pieris rapae in Latin), while feeding on the leaves of Brassicaceae like kale, radish, and cabbage, also pollinate their flowers once they have turned into butterflies. However, too many of them can be a problem for your crops.
On top of all this, here’s a helpful infographic, detailing the life cycle of a caterpillar:
What Kind of Damage Can Caterpillar Cause?
To start with, let us state that caterpillars and plants have coexisted peacefully for eons; no caterpillar has ever caused the extinction of a single species of plants.
However, their presence can now be a problem to crops due to a series of factors:
- Intensive and extensive farming, which has reduced biodiversity and the ability of plants to withstand the presence of many insects.
- The use of pesticides, which has not just killed bugs and the like, but also poisoned their predators, like birds; this means that while once upon a time there was an equilibrium between the populations of caterpillars, their predators and the plants they feed on, nowadays this is missing, and the little worm like creatures can eat away unchecked and uncontrolled until they end up damaging the very plants on whose existence their own life cycle depends.
Are Chemical Pesticides a Possible Option?
Having found out why caterpillars can be an issue for your veggies, you may have thought about using chemical caterpillar killers to sort out the problem. This seems to be an easy and quick solution, and certainly many farmers (extensive commercial ones especially) have been resorting to this method.
However, not all that glitters is gold. In fact, the use of chemical pesticides can (and often does) end up worsening the problem. Why? Simple, as we said before, they end up poisoning the very predators that keep their populations in check.
Many birds have died because they have eaten poisoned bugs, and with them, the hope of having a natural and permanent solution to the very problem chemical caterpillar killers was invented to resolve.
Moreover, science has discovered cases when caterpillars developed a resistance to the pesticides used to get rid of them. Finally, remember that using poison on your plants may also mean that you will eat it yourself.
To start with, to have any he that it will not enter your body, you will have to stop applying the caterpillar killer long before you harvest your veggies. That is usually a minimum of 15 days, but it can be longer. In that time, the little larvae can come back and damage your crops anyway.
Finally, you would need to wash your veggies with bicarbonate of soda every time to get rid of residual poison (and even that may not be a full solution). If you then have decided to grow your own veggies to have a wholesome, healthy, and organic diet, chemicals are no options at all.
So, how can you solve your caterpillar problem? The answer may be easier than you would have thought…
The Homemade Caterpillar Killer
Right, here we are… The solution is cheap, eco-friendly, and easy! No need to spend money on chemicals (moreover, in some countries, you now need to have a license to use some pesticides – that says a lot!), no need to risk your health and that of your children. No, in fact, the ingredients you will need to get rid of caterpillars can be found in most kitchens around the globe, and, actually, they have wonderfully beneficial effects on humans. Fortunately, caterpillars just detest them.
Even before we get into the nitty-gritty, a piece of trivia: did you know that humans are the only species that eats chili peppers? It is a conundrum evolutionists have not been able to solve, but this fruit is loathsome to all animals except Homo sapiens, so, no one understands how it would have evolved…
Anyway, here is how to prepare your own caterpillar spray at the cost of a few bucks (or even less) and which will not damage your health, nor that of the environment which sustains your beloved veggies.
All you will need are five simple ingredients you can find very, very easily: garlic, chili, water, natural Castile soap, and a bit of time. Doesn’t it sound fantastic? These four simple things will get rid of any need to use chemical caterpillar killers and of the caterpillars as well, and it will save you both money and health; it is a win-win situation!
Ready? So, do you want to know how to prepare it? To start with, decide how much you need; to be on the safe side, prepare about one liter for every 25 square meters of the crop (or a gallon for every 100 square meters). Now, for each liter, this is what you need to do (adapt to the quantity you need):
- Crush about 10 cloves of garlic (approximately a good sized head).
- Chop 5 small and very hot chilli peppers (adapt according to how spicy they are, this applies to medium-heat peppers, like Dorset Naga, Red Savina, Habanero and Scotch Bonnet); avoid anything under 12,000 SHU (Scoville Heat Units), if above 800,000, you can reduce the quantity.
- Grate about 30 grammes of natural Castile soap (this serves as an adhesive, to make the spray stick to the plant).
- Place everything in a jar with the water and seal.
- Wait for about 10 to 15 days.
- Place the solution into a spray bottle and spray your plants abundantly.
Remember to repeat the operation regularly (every fortnight) and after it rains, and you will have a caterpillar-free crop that you can eat safely and which has caused no damage to the environment.
Before We Say Goodbye
As you can see, the best solution to a problem caused by unnatural, chemical farming is, oddly enough, natural. It looks like nature can come up with all the solutions and they are cheaper, safer, and even more effective than those that industrial chemistry has come up with.
Now, go out to your vegetable garden, check for caterpillars and, if you have any, just pop down to the grocer’s and with a few bucks, and in a short time you will say goodbye to these larvae, and you will see your veggies go strong and big, ready for the picking.
