If sharing is caring, then I must love caterpillars.

Sharing, perhaps, isn’t the right word for what is happening in my garden since only one organism is involved. 

Caterpillars are eating my garden greens. More accurately, they are voraciously consuming every leaf in sight, leaving me almost nothing but skeletonized shadows of the leaves’ former flourishing selves. I may be sharing my greens, but the caterpillars are definitely not returning the favor.

How did it happen and who is the culprit? Great questions — ones that will be better answered than what to do about the problem.

It seemed like just a week ago that my leafy greens were lavishly growing and were just about ready to harvest. Then almost overnight, holes began to appear in the leaves and soon after I noticed crowds of crawling caterpillars. Now it has become a brassica massacre.

Observing cabbage white butterflies fluttering about, I assumed that I had found the offender. Upon looking up its caterpillar form, I realized that the cabbage whites were not the problem. Ditto with other typical brassica pests, including the imported cabbageworm, diamondback moth and cabbage looper caterpillars.

None of them quite matched the black, white and yellow caterpillars that were crawling boldly beneath each luscious leaf. Further research provided the name of my produce-eating pal.  The cross-striped cabbageworm is the consumer of my crops. This caterpillar is the larval form of a nondescript grey moth that likes greens and will also munch on broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower. UMass Extension notes that this species was formerly restricted to the South and now is a problem in southeastern New England, though other sites insist that it is a native pest.

Native or not, I want to banish them from my garden. This, however, will not prove to be easy.

Cross-striped cabbageworms lay eggs in batches of 20 or 30 at a time. Compound that with multiple moths and you have many masses of hungry mouths to feed. Add to their fecundity the fact that they can have two to three generations per year and eradication seems futile.

Suggestions to combat these caterpillars all stress that is it easiest to deal with them early on. Looks like I missed the boat on that one. 

Before the infestation is advanced, one can remove the caterpillars by hand and squish or soak in soapy water. Another management method suggests covering your plants with row covers to prevent the female from laying eggs in the first place (now you tell me). Insecticidal sprays work too, say my gardening friends. One suggestion that I might employ next season is to co-plant fragrant herbs such as lavender with my crops to dissuade the destroyers.

My infestation is far enough along that likely none of the above suggestions will work. I need to accept that my greens are gone, that the caterpillars got the lion’s share, and for this year, at least, I won’t be getting my fair share.  

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature.