A few days ago I noticed that some more eggs had been laid on one of our chilli plants. Following an internet search I think that they must be the eggs of a cabbage white butterfly. All of the blogs that I have read on these say that you should destroy the eggs, rubbing them off with soapy water but I like the idea of encouraging biodiversity through our windowsills and don't really want to go around killing eggs. Is this a really bad idea and will the caterpillars end up munching right through our windowbox?It also seems that it must have been quite a confused butterfly that laid it's eggs there. From the information on the British Butterfly Conservaton Society's website the eggs are normally laid either on brassicas or on nasturtiums or wild mignonette. So a serrano chilli plant seems a little far removed from any of them!
Oh neat! I can't wait to see what hatches.
ReplyDeleteYou could nip of the leaf with the eggs but as far as white butterflies go I'm afraid they are bad news. See the video I made on our website here
ReplyDeleteJust found your blog and can think of nothing better than gardening for the dinner table. I'll surely visit again
ReplyDeletemeemsnyc - Yes I thought that it would be exciting to wait and see them hatch and grow but unfortunately the video on the Green Lane Allotments blog convinced me otherwise and I have snipped the leaf off.
ReplyDeleteGreen Lane Allotments - Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the video - very informative and definitely convinced me that I didn't want the caterpillars on the windowsill.
TerryD - Glad you enjoyed the blog and thanks for leaving a comment. Hope you pop by again soon.