In about October, we built a new garden bed. It’s next to a public path but sheltered by trees.
We filled it with salad veg (rather than tomatoes or berries) because we figure if you encourage opportunistic dog walkers to pause and sample the produce, their dogs will leave their thanks by proxy. No one is going to stop for a silver beet snack!
Two months on and the bed is looking good! Lots of silver beet, which graces the table pretty much every day. But what has become of the kale?
Apparently caterpillars don’t like to eat stems! Does anyone have a preferred control method?
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Posted by Brooke on Dec 19, 2012 at 8:40 am
companion planting calendula to help keep the moths away and then picking the little gren buggers off and feeding them to the chooks – but if it gets really really really bad… derris dust (boo hiss)
Posted by whatwouldmacgyverdo on Dec 31, 2012 at 11:29 am
Thanks for commenting! I have marigolds but not calendula so I’ll look into that. We had some pyrethrum lying around so I gave that a go. Share your feelings about the derris dust: we have a creek at the bottom of our hill so I’ll try other things first.