On checking on how the cabbages
were doing I noticed that something had been having a nibble at the outer
leaves. It wasn’t just the outer leaves that had been nibbled, but something
had tunnelled straight through the heart of my cabbage. On closer inspection I
found a big, fat, caterpillar trying its best to stay out of sight. I was not
impressed. Every year I cover the brassicas with insect proof mesh and every
year a caterpillar or two always seems to find its way inside and create a
catastrophe. Ok I might be exaggerating a little here, but when I only have
enough room to grow a handful of cabbage, and I really do mean five or six,
losing just one or two is quite a significant number. I ended up tossing the
remains of the cabbage on the compost heap, along with the caterpillar. After
hunting down and removing a further two caterpillars, the bed was re-covered
with the netting.
As I turned my attention to
tidying the flower border at the back of the garden I could hear a rustling of
leaves. The sound was coming from underneath the hedge and when I bent down to
see where the noise was coming from I came face to face with a baby blackbird.
With no hesitation the bird hopped out in front of me and started to peck
around the area I had cleared minutes earlier. Feeling a little sorry for the birds
efforts in finding a bite to eat I retreated to the compost bin and scooped up
one of the caterpillars that I’d chucked in earlier. I offered this to the baby
blackbird who promptly ate it before flying off to the call of its parent
nearby.
I would like to point out that I
don’t make a habit of sending caterpillars to their doom by feeding them to the
birds. This was a one off occurrence and as this seems to have been a
particularly good year for butterflies, given the number I’ve seen on my
lavender alone, I hope you will understand why I had no sense of guilt in doing
so.
We need to provide more plants in
our gardens that benefit bees and butterflies, and in doing so know that we are
doing our bit for nature.
