Caterpillars

[ChilliUK]

Hi,

Ive got a couple of outdoor plants going at the moment that are roughly 2 weeks into forced 12/12 flowering( see in outdoors budshots ). I am having a bit of a problem with caterpillars. Not so much eating the leaves, but they seem to be using the leave to hatch. What seems to happen is i notice that the leaves kind of become stuck together and roll up into a tube, coveded with a kind of white sticky goo

If i peel back the leaves i have been finding a baby catterpillar at the centre of the mess. Not that im into flowering i obviously dont want these things munching on my herb, so i wonder what i can do about them. I dont really know anything about catterpillars, thinking back to biology i remember that catterpillars eventually turn to butterflys or moths but what are they before catterpillars , ie when they wrap up in my leaves?

Is there anything i can spray on my plants to prevent them from doing this, bearing in mind that the plants are flowering and i dont wanna smoke no nasty pesticides. I am always out looking at the plants so am normally spotting these symptoms pretty soon but thought that prevention would be better than cure.

peace

Chilli

[oldtimer1]

They start out as eggs, then caterpillars that eat the leaves, If they are eating your leaves spray with a BT [bacillus thuringiensis] product such as Dipel. This is a bacteria harmless to mammals and used for organic control of moths and butterfly caterpillars.

[ChilliUK]

Hi,

Cheers for the info, am gonna go out tommorow and look for what u recommended as i found another sticky leaf with a a baby caterpillar in the plant tonight grrrr, damn things are gettin high on the plant before me

peace

Chilli