Kitchen Garden Forum

I'm a bit puzzled - getting towards the end of our leek crop, and we've recently found a few (very few - isolated might be a better term) green caterpillars on them. There's no obvious damage, except possibly to the outer leaves, which are a bit weather-damaged anyway. As I understand it, the larvae of the leek moth are much smaller, and eat their way into the stem.

Could be the caterpillar of the Small White that has just wandered onto your leeks looking for shelter. They seem quite tough and I've found them in all sorts of odd places in the winter. When there are no cabbages around they do move around looking for anything green

John

You could be right, John. It struck me that they looked a bit like cabbage white caterpillars. There are some small kale plants (deliberately sown late and planted close together) in the next bed, but the caterpillars would have to crawl across several feet of gravel to get to the leeks...

I also found cabbage white caterpillar on my cauliflower which I cut this morning, I was suprised to see one this time of year,still it has been so mild.