h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My attempts at creating a wildlife haven, seem to have paid off. I have Elephant hawk moth caterpillars on my fuschias I'm hoping they will pupate before my fuschias suffer any serious damage There has also been alot more buterflies in the garden this year, along with frogs, a toad and a newt. I'm very pleased with how its gone.

I've noticed more butterflies as well this year.

It does seem to have been a good year for them. At least something is thriving in our weird weather.

I found a caterpillar on one of my dwarf runner bean pods. Thin, pale green, about half a cm long. Any ideas what such a body would grow into?

sorry, half an inch

Does it have any markings at all? There are alot of pale green caterpillars
Some are easy to identify, others remain a mystery

Aren't the pale green ones normally cabbage white butterflies? At least that's what the large mass of green caterpillars on last year's nasturtiums turned out to be.

We've had a veritable plague of caterpillars this year - especially in the brassicas, so they're probably white cabbage butterflies in the making.

We decided to try Savoy and Red cabbages but need to be out there every single day, picking off the wee beasties.

When I cut the last head of broccoli, over 2 dozen caterpillars came off it in the sink.

We also had a lot of aphids on the Artichokes - but I noticed there were several ladybirds there too, so left them to it - and they've done the biz.

Has anyone else noticed ants on their plants - 'farming' wee black beasties?
This was a problem on the broad beans - but nipping off the growing tips put a stop to it.

I'd say they probably are the white cabbage ones. There the only type of butterfly I usually see round here, so there's a good chance it's them.

Haven't noticed any ants Teuchter. Apparently they are known to 'farm' aphids - I don't think anyone really knows why, but they keep them in the ant's nest for some purpose or other (or so I've heard anyway!)

he cabbage white caterpillars come in 2 varieties, large cabbage white and small cabbage white. The caterpillars of the large one are black, with yellow and white spots. The smaller one i think, has green caterpillars, but so does the brimstone and orange tip. I'll have to check my book to be sure.