Caterpillars - I had them crawling all over my sapling birch tree last week, doing a good job of stripping the branches. I took the power hose to it. Seems to have done the trick.
I didn't want to go down the 'dilute fairy liquid' route in case I poisoned any wild birds.

These are cabbage white butterfly caterpillars. they adore any of the cabbage family and as you can see nasturiums. dilute washing up l;iquid wont harm the birds.

Before using Liquid soap as an insecticide one ought to read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triclosan.
We hand pick caterpillars like these and feed them to the hens and birds rather than spraying everywhere with rather nasty chemicals.

If you are spraying with soapy water only use eco friendly washing up liquid not the normal polluting brands

i dont use antibacterial detergents as I find the hysteria over 'germs' on surfaces rather annoying. no wonder we have so many auto immune diseases.
I really do hate the 'lets kill all surface bacteria then spend even more money on yoghurt with 'friendly bacteria' to re balance our gut' trends.

what will they advocate next oh yes lets sterilise our skin then pay for medicines to improve our skin.

oops sorry for the rant but it makes me cross with all the psuedo science that is thrown at us.

I agree SBG everything can be too clean!

:o))

Hear, hear !