I really don’t want to turn this blog into a list of plant pests on my allotment, but the lepidopteran onslaught I am having to repel at the moment is absolutely outrageous. The first thing I do when I go to the allotment now is check the cabbages to pick off the caterpillars. No matter how many I picked off on my previous visit there are always more to keep me busy. So I’m become even more vigilant and trying to get to the eggs before they hatch out.

These yellow eggs have been laid by the large cabbage white butterfly (Pieris brassicae). They were quite easy to find as they had been laid on the upper side of the leaf. That’s right! The butterflies are getting so cocky they are laying their eggs in full view! Interestingly I have only found these eggs on the broccoli and not on the cabbages.

Just a few plants along the row and I came across these wiggling wrigglers.

They look like they have recently hatched out. Large cabbage white caterpillars eat their egg cases after they hatch which explains why there are none present on the photo. Luckily I got to these before they did any real damage.

Seeing all of the white butterflies at the allotment today it looks as though I’ll be picking and scraping the brassica leaves for a good while yet.

Allotmenteering, like many things, involves the interplay between good and bad. I’ve previously written about the frogs, toads and newts that share my soil. These, of course, represent the good. They feed on the pests that want to eat my plants so are always a welcome sight. I’ve seen so many mini frogs over the last month or so, so I’ve been careful of where I’ve been stepping!

The rain is good, of course. It makes the plants grow large and saves me from having to water. However, the rain has it’s bad points. The moist, warm conditions that this summer has provided have been ideal for slugs and snails. Slugs, of course, represent the bad. And despite the good work that my amphibians have been doing, the slugs are beginning to win.

This bad boy (Arion ater) lives on top of my wheel barrow. I keep my barrow hidden under tarpaulin, which is clearly the ideal conditions for slugs and snails, as whenever the wheelbarrow comes out to work it is covered in these slimy pests.

I don’t mind a few slugs at this time of year. After all, the frogs and toads need to eat and the birds do too. Any hedgehogs would love these fellas. So I’m not going to try and kill these. They can have their chances in the wild part of the allotment. Bad they may be, but they make good food for my four legged friends.

The same cannot be said for these bad lads…

The whole allotment site has been a haze of cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae) for the last couple of weeks. It was inevitable that they would lay their eggs on my cabbages and their caterpillars (the green one in the photo) would begin to take that which is rightfully mine. They are bad, with no redeeming features. The big brown caterpillar in the photo is from the cabbage moth (Mamestra brassicae). You can see from the size of him how bad he is for the plant. Find out more about brassica pest control here.

So it looks like I’ll be on caterpillar watch for the next couple of weeks. I’ve not had a bad year for pests, what with the rabbit fence and the lack of pigeons (I think someone has had the air rifle out again!), so I can’t complain.

But I’ll not surrender the cabbage crop; they’re too good to lose.

Thanks to Simon at The Plot Thickens for keeping us entertained all week with his images for National Insect Week (23rd to 29th June). It’s hard to take photos of insects, especially when your camera is rubbish at macro shots, but I made it my mission today. Here are the results…

This chap was hiding on the plastic which covers up the tools (no shed yet!). I wasn’t sure what type of moth it was until I got my book out at home – it looks worryingly like the Cabbage Moth (Mamestra brassicae). Not good to see, especially as we have just put some cabbages in! It soon flew from my hand onto someone else plot. Not sure if I would have killed it had I known what it was, but I certainly feel guilty of letting it fly onto someone elses patch!

OK, I know spiders aren’t insects, although they are arthropods just like insects are; but seeing as I took this photo today, and I’m pretty happy with it, I’m going to include it! This is a wolf spider, possible of the Pardosa genus, although I’m not certain. It’s carrying its egg sac from where we disturbed it.

Hard to see the insects on this one, but this is an ants nest. The white bean-like objects are the eggs which the ants are frantically moving away deeper into the compost bin, where this photo was taken. The compost has a plastic sheet over the top which I had removed, much to the ants displeasure. Not sure if these guys do any harm on the allotment, but as long as they stay in the compost bin I don’t mind.

Our friendly blackbird seemed to be liking national insect week too, gobbling up it’s fair share of critters. I love bug hunting at any time, so thanks to national insect week for giving me a special reason to look out for the mini beasts.

Whilst weeding the spinach patch this little fella came out of the vegetation looking a bit startled. I’d been amazed by how little slug damage there was on the fresh tasty green leaves of the spinach. It seems like the local newts have been helping me out.

This is Triturus vulgaris, or Smooth Newt, which is the commonest newt in Britain. In its terrestrial phase it will eat slugs, worms and other insects, although it is usually only active at night. This could be a male or a female. The males have a wavy crest in the breeding season but as we are past that now they look the same as the females.

I’m so lucky to have this sort of wildlife at the allotment.

It’s always interesting to turn over damp logs…

I found these two chaps when I was clearing away the junk from the overgrown part of the plot ready for spraying. They are hiding in a hollow cut into an old door frame. They are each about 5cm long and did not like being disturbed at all! They tried to crawl deeper into the crevice once I had turned it over. These boys (or girls!) are so welcome on my plot, they do a great job of keeping the slug population down. So that they would avoid the spray gun I moved them to the log pile at the bottom of the plot. There should be plenty of slimy beasts there for them to munch on as its overgrown with nettles and brambles. Keep up the good work chaps (sorry about the disturbance)

A comment from Philip on my recent post on peas and another post from Mostlywillbegrowing got me wondering about slugs. I don’t want to sound too smug but I have virtually no problems at all with slugs or snails. Initially I considered this to be down to my fantastic gardening skills, but the more I think about it the more I have to admit that the lack of slug action on my plot is primarily due to the presence of these guys.

Unless I am very much mistaken these two are Common Frogs (Rana temporaria). We have found loads of frogs and toads on our plot recently. I have no idea where they are spawning because there isn’t a pond nearby, but they are defiantly reproducing as we found a mini frog a couple of weeks ago.

They love the plastic sheeting that is lying around. They also loved the old compost heap until we dug it up and disturbed their hibernation – sorry guys. After all you do for us (and the peas) we could have been more considerate. We did relocate all of the frogs and toads we dug up to somewhere safe, and they have obviously survived because I have yet to find a slug.

One of the reasons I took on an allotment when I moved to Darlington was to get closer to wildlife. I used to work outdoors and live in the countryside so I was used to seeing and hearing wildlife everyday. Where I live now there is very little ‘green space’ and virtually no opportunity to connect with nature. I thought an allotment would help with this.

The good thing about our allotment site is that it is messy! There are lots of overgrown plots, land not being cultivated, hedges and piles of discarded wood. OK, so it doesn’t look particularly nice but it does provide a fantastic habitat for local wildlife.

We don’t get anything particularly special visiting. The usual birds, toads, mice, hedgehogs, foxes, bees, beetles, newts and lizards, but its good to see them around when you are digging or weeding. The birds especially like the digging!

Of course, you have to put up with the unwanted wildlife – rabbits, pigeons, slugs and snails. These got more than their fair share of allotment produce last year so we are tightening our security this time around. But we are also doing more to attract the good guys. Bird feeders and log piles are a start. Perhaps a pond later in the year also.

All of these photos are from last year. I had another day of digging today, again with nothing much to show for it. No wildlife either. Still, it should begin to pay off before too long…