CATERPILLARS

Caterpillars are to be admired in a strange sort of way as sometimes you just have to hand it to Mother Nature; if we could sit down with all the 21st Century technology available to us and design the ultimate plant-destroying machine, the chances are we'd come with a caterpillar - and the larvae of the both the Large and Small Cabbage White butterfly is arguably the most ravenous of all, leaving many a brassica grower staring at a skeleton of a cabbage, brussels sprout or broccoli plant!

And it's not just vegetable growers who suffer at the jaws of these voracious larvae; fruit tree fans will be horrified to hear that the larvae of the codling and plum moths are very keen to eat their way to safety in the middle of developing apples and plums, making them very difficult to eradicate.

The news isn't all bad however - thanks to the caterpillar and moth killing nematodes we stock, and the traps and monitors which give an early warning of potential problems, you can fight back and maybe enjoy your fruit and vegetables after all!