Caterpillars

chadm20

for your problem I would try to coax as many birds to your property as possible. they will devour those in no time. like you I had problems with slugs, snails and pests. as soon as I stated feeding the birds and establishing a pond for frogs and toads my problems eased 10 fold. I also now have a resident hedgehog which is devouring anything that crawls. my son has called him Mr Prickels lol

Rovver125

Thanks chadm20, but all that's already in place in this garden, feed the birds regularly & always have sparrows, finches, blue tits, blackbirds etc visiting the garden. Even got a sparrowhawk visiting occasionally, although unfortunately that's more interested in the other birds than the caterpillars!

Also have a pond, home to 12 fish (at the moment, saw two small ones the other night so fish have obviously been getting jiggy with it this year!) & have seen several different frogs & toads on a regular basis.

Had masses of tadpoles in the summer, thought the fish might eat them as always read this to be the case, but loads of them made it through to the mini frog stage, found them everywhere when they started leaving the pond, even in the kitchen!

We do seem to have an abundance of wildlife here, no hedgehogs yet, had them nesting at our old house & trying to make this garden as friendly as possible for them so hope we might have a pair take up residence eventually. No wonder there's caterpillars here really, there's obviously a pretty healthy eco system in place. See so many slugs & snails as well that I think the resident wildlife must be overfed!

Hoping to get a few chickens next year, I think they'll help out!

Rovver125

Just been out for a quick look round the garden & think I'll have to admit defeat, only found a couple on plants, which is all I've been checking so far, but just noticed the lawn is crawling with them! Lost count there were so many!

If I was going to break out the chemicals, which I'll say again, I really don't want to, I'd literally have to spray the entire garden!

They win!! (this year anyway!)

A._Badger

And thus harsh reality comes face to face with elegant theory.

Pesticides were invented because traditional methods weren't always effective. I don't care if I'm howled down by a chorus of 'Green' protests: in my experience, a policy of 'minimal but determined' use works best.

Rovver125

I definitely see & respect your point of view A. Badger. It's just that after seeing the amount & spread the other night, feels like it would have to be all out nuclear warfare across the entire garden!

As it is, the weather seems to have made a difference, had pretty hard frosts the last few nights (for Cornwall anyway!) & haven't seen a single one since.

Dare say they're keeping snug at the base of the plants laughing at my feeble efforts to find them...