Caterpillars Eating the Broccoli and Cabbage

Broccoli or cabbage plant well chewed on.

On closer inspection two caterpillars on the small inner leaves can be seen eating the broccoli.

All the broccoli or cabbage in my garden are mystery plants given to me by a fellow gardener. They are mystery plants because my friend was unsure whether they were broccoli or cabbage seedlings because they had long ago lost their labels back when they were started by seed. This one looks more like a broccoli plant to me since it is upright and tall, at this stage cabbage leaves probably would have started folding in on each other.

Yesterday I picked off a giant caterpillar which was chewing on a large outer leaf, and today I found two smaller caterpillars eating away at the inner leaves of the same broccoli plant. There have been little white moths fluttering around the garden who may or may not be the source of the caterpillars. Either way they are easily squished by gloved fingers or a gardening trowel.

It is amazing how much damage one or two caterpillars can do to a single plant in just a couple days. The other brassica plants are undamaged. For now.