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Caterpillars eaten my gooseberry bush

United Kingdom Gb

I have 6 gooseberry bushes and at least a 100 caterpillars have stripped them of their leaves and left the fruit, what should I do now??




Answers

 

Gooseberry sawfly. Dratted nuisance. Not much you can do, except feed the bushes with a high nitrogen feed to encourage it to replace the eaten leaves. The ones in our hedgerow get stripped like this every year and always recover to porduce a good crop of fruit.
Spray with 1 part full cream milk to 9 parts water to keep mildew off the exposed fruit.

3 May, 2009

 

apart from swear quietly under your breath and smile as they will turn into beautifyl butterflies (which freak me out)

this has happened to my mother many times in the past and she says exactly as Owdboggy that and reguarly checks them and removes the cheeky monkeys when ever she sees one

or at least she got us 5 kids to do it

hehe kept us quiet for ages

x x x

3 May, 2009

 

Sawfly aren't exactly beautiful so there's not much to smile about at all I'm afraid! Well at least they left the fruit for you.. :-)

3 May, 2009

 

thats a shame

3 May, 2009

 

I have a gooseberry that this happens to too not a lot you can do unless you catch them at the right time and squish em! they eat my Solomons Seal too :o(

3 May, 2009

 

Different sawfly sk but the same effect :-(

3 May, 2009

 

Thank you everyone for all your replies, im abit happier now :-)

3 May, 2009

 

Oh is it Andrew? thanks didn't know that!!

3 May, 2009

How do I say thanks?

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