NO! You worms leave my cabbage alone!

Anyone who successfully grows anything organically has my full respect. If my organic goods were to appear at market they'd be chockful of pest holes. My five seasonal attempts at vegetable gardening have made me appreciate that every extra  dollar paid for an organic fruit or vegetable was well deserved. BRAVO to those who can do it and do it well!


As you might be able to tell - I'm having some pest issues; specifically with my cabbage.

We first spotted holes in the cabbage on Monday. Oliver Googled them and thinks they're most likely Cabbage Worms. The underside of our biggest leaves are pocked with the craters of opened eggs.  The organic solution is to (and I quote) "hand-pick and destroy any worms you find". Hi, for my more girly friends and readers, as well as those who consider them self squeamish, the organic solution to save my beautiful and cherished cabbages is to pick off increasingly large worms with my hands and squish them between my fingers. Oh great.

Monday, Oliver and I both took a turn thoroughly looking over every single cabbage leaf and smooshing every worm we found. Tuesday and Wednesday it was looking like our work had paid off. But today there was sudden resurgence in worm destruction. As soon as I got home from the office I threw on long pants and a long sleeve t-shirt (over my work clothes) and planted myself on all fours in front of our garden. The next six weeks it may be me versus the worms; welcome to battle at the GARDENDOME! It's worm smooshing season.
*Note: the three worms shown in my photos are not the smallest ones I squished.