Grow Your Own Magazine

I wonder whether anyone has any thoughts. My healthy gooseberry bush was full of gooseberries until...this week I noticed something was eating away at the leaves. So I put down some slug pellets, thinking my garden friends had made their annual return. A couple of days later the pellets hadn't been touched, yet half of the leaves had gone. On careful inspection of the bush, I noticed each leaf was riddled with about five or six caterpillars. As it stands today, the bush is empty of leaves, the fruit is still there, and the caterpillars are moving on. Has anyone any thoughts, advice on what to do next A with the bush and B with the caterpillars should they migrate to another plant in the garden.

Don't know whay kind of caterpillers you have. Every year about this time we seem to get invaded by saw flies which leave the polygonatums covered in gray caterpillers. If we leave them or miss them they absolutely skeletalise the plants.:mad We usually have to cut them down and burn them. Shame as they are so lovely. Thinking about getting rid if them unless we can find a solution. And they are so expensive in garden centres. I think your gooseberry bush will be ok and will just regrow. As for the caterpillers you might just have to hunt them down and destroy them

I've had little green caterpillars on my gooseberries, they're the exact colour of the leaves and quite difficult to spot. I think I've got rid of my using the organic method. Pull them off and stamp on them. It did take agood few hunts to get them all.

Thanks for your advice. The caterpillars were very small green ones. I think I might go and inspect other plants to see they haven't migrated to another spot in my garden.

Get them off, pick them off by hand, they will just eat all the leaves and you will lose the crop. Sawfly lay their larvae on gooseberry bushes and this sounds like them.

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Andrewo
www.andrewoldham.co.uk

The more caterpillers that survive will mean even more next year!

I've picked the last few caterpillars off, but a lot seem to be on the floor. Should I use something to kill them? My father-in-law said there is some kind of spray you can get for these things. To be honest I'd rather remain as organic as possible, so I'm reluctant to go buying this spray.

Gooseberry sawfly will decimate the plant in a week or so and you need to do something with those on the ground as the eggs are laid at the base of the bush and you will continue to have this annual problem. I threw my bushes out two years ago - got fed up of nurturing them only for them to become sawfly central.
Do not concern yourself with other plants in your garden - at least as far as Gooseberry sawfly are concerned -sawfly are plant specific.

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

[size="1"]Journal updated Saturday 28th June

I understand that there are up to 3 hatches of larvae each year too, so you need to keep 2 steps ahead of them!!

Fran, I think the organic method (apart from squashing any you find!) might be squirting with Derris dust to kill them. I have had problems with gooseberry sawfly larvae in the past & although they strip the leaves the bush does recover & the fruit are O.K. they just get so annoying!
P.S. Just noticed you can get Bio Liquid Derris now to spray with instead of the powder, Derris is used by lots of 'organic ' gardeners.
PPS. Rat says gooseberry sawfly only attack gooseberries but they also ate my redcurrant, I saw it with my own eyes & Doctor Hessayon's 'Garden Troubles Expert' book says they attack gooseberries & currants.

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Into every life a little rain must fall.

When I had a gooseberry bush, and it showed signs of gooseberry sawfly, I would chuck some bird feed (ie peanuts, sunflower hearts, etc) under the bush, and the problem would be very quickly sorted. At this time of year when adult birds have chicks to feed, the sawfly grubs are a natural source of food. You can't get much more organic than that!

valmarg

Hi Valmarg! Welcome to the grapevine. That is an excellent tip - thanks!

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Welcome Valmarg and thanks for the tip. Maybe we all have to learn to think. I'll be looking at my garden with a new eye.

Thanks for your welcome Lesley Jay and Alice.

Although we only have a small garden I try to be as wildlife friendly as possible.

The only reason we no longer have a gooseberry bush is that last year it was covered with mildew. I just don't like spraying anything we grow to eat, so, it had to go.

valmarg

Planted small gooseberry bush last year which did not do much. Last weekend it was full of leaves and 4 days later it is bare it's covered in green caterpillars. As it's next to our current bushes I think I will be digging it up

I've never had any fruit off my gooseberry - the Sawfly eat all the leaves while I'm not looking. I've given up growing it ... I much prefer blackcurrants anyway.

Yes, the best advice is the bird food one... but you may have to net the fruit when it comes against the same little birdies that ate your caterpillars.

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I came, I saw, I planted

you can either pick the caterpillars off, or use a basic houseplant bug spray
i'm not keen on the bird method - birds could eat the gooseberries
i planted garlic around my gooseberries last year - no sawfly - apparently the garlic helps keep sawfly away - got more garlic growing there this year, will check for sawfly tonight and will report back here

We have the same little green caterpillar - hundreds of them on the gooseberrys and also the currants :-( We had them last year, but at the end of the season, not this early.

The RHS website says you can use an "organic pesticide such as rotenone (Bio Liquid Derris Plus) or pyrethrum (Py Garden Insect Killer, Scotts Nature's Answer Natural Bug Killer, Gem Stop Bugs or Doff All in One Insecticide Spray)." Royal Horticultural Society - Gardening Advice: Gooseberry Sawfly

There are far too many to pick off by hand so we're off to try and find some of this organic stuff today at the garden centre.

I think the pupae live in the soil. If you remove all plants nearby and disturb the soil - then the birds will eat them all !