um, you probably don't want to know this... but I purposely grow a kale that self seeds to attract them

Originally posted by greenmann um, you probably don't want to know this... but I purposely grow a kale that self seeds to attract them

I'm not sure why you do this, or are you joking? You may not realize that the white butterflies are not native to our region?

Twenty lashes to you for encouraging them. Be wary of veggie gardeners and pitchforks! If they become an angry mob . . .

Originally posted by DebbieTT Originally posted by greenmann um, you probably don't want to know this... but I purposely grow a kale that self seeds to attract them I'm not sure why you do this, or are you joking? You may not realize that the white butterflies are not native to our region? Twenty lashes to you for encouraging them. Be wary of veggie gardeners and pitchforks! If they become an angry mob . . .

It comes from desperation... to date, the cabbage white is the ONLY butterfly I have been able to successfully encourage in my garden, and along with the swallowtail, is the only butterfly I can count on flying in my garden each year. None of my immediate neighbors are growing veggies as far as I know (I really am in a difficult part of the Island to grow such things... too shady and cool) so I will brave those pitchforks :P And yes, I am VERY well aware it is not native. Neither is the Anna's Hummingbird, but I welcome them and plant for them, too. I never said I was a purist, or even necessarily rational about it

And since I have to post this... I will also post a caution about Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which is a bio-engineered bacterial parasite that is not nearly as targeted as most people assume it is. If you use it, please be careful of overspray as you would of ANY insecticide (or any other -cide for that matter). The one used for cabbage moths will affect ALL lepidoptera, including moths and butterflies of a very wide spectrum. It may serve to keep your cabbages worm free, but if you let it spray all over, you will be affecting caterpillars from inch worms to woolly bears and everything else lepidoptera. Please target it as narrowly as you can. Please note, I'm not saying don't use it, I'm trying to say don't ABUSE it.

I should have mentioned above that I have had some success (in baseball parlance, I hit above .300) with a tennis racket. Greenman wouldn't care for it but it is a very specific weapon.

I don't think that we are on different pages. I only use it on my cole crops. Further south of Olympia, I might use it on corn ear worm if we got a warm enough summer, like 1998, and I saw the moths in the patch at dusk. Thankfully, we don't get the Tomato Horn worm like CA does.

I don't know about your specific Seattle spray example but I do know that the State AG folks do set traps to determine the gypsy levels. I check their counts each year to see if they might be spraying my area again like they did once in the 1990's. I didn't have cabbage moth troubles for about 3 years after.

Your comments about "attacking other" was enhanced when I read Territorial's new Winter catalog yesterday and noticed that they mentioned cabbage root maggots as targets of a Bt soaked wheat bran bait in addition to the cabbage worms. It's been there since at least 2004 but I hadn't picked up on it.

Grower experience and some research (what company is going to finance it?) has developed a belief by many that if a grower brings his soil up to a full complement of nutrients, insect and disease damage will approach nil.

A good short article by a NEW homesteader, Harvey Ussery speaks to this:

" Insect Pests by Harvey Ussery"

Hands-On Agronomy and The Biological Farmer by Neal Kinsey and Gary Zimmer respectively (both published by Acres USA) speak to this as part of their soil fertility systems. Both writers are disciple of Dr. Wm. Albrecht. Kinsey was lucking enough to take some classes and tutoring from him.

Harvey is also an Albrecht soils user through his soil test consultant. Check his FULL website for lots of interesting short articles, well illustrated too, on his 2.5 acre homestead.

Acres USA provides many archived articles on soil fertility, biological farming, etc. such as:

"Rebuilding Soil Fertility" by Neal Kinsey

The full list of articles can be browsed at:

"Acres USA Article Archives"

Now that I'm almost into summer vacation from my grandpa daycare job, I intend to put up some stuff I've learned (you can do a lot of reading with a 9 month old sleeping on your chest twice a day) on our soils and how many nutrients, minerals actually that we need here in the Maritime PNW.

My granddaughter was 11 months old on Sunday & the sleep hours have reduced greatly. And the independent standing is at the stage that going on vacation next week for 2 months may not be soon enough to avoid her walking to get into things.



Edited by gary - Jun-03-2008 at 4:06am