We’ve been growing kale for a few months on the balcony, and have already enjoyed a fine few meals with it. A few days ago I was surprised while watering to find it crawling in long black and yellow things.

About 20 caterpillars had taken up residence on one of the kale plants and pretty much destroyed it overnight.  The pictures show the caterpillar-infested kale as I found it and after.  They really know how to do a thorough job!

I put a picture up on twitpic and tweeted looking for advice. After a few tweets from fellow gardeners it was clear that this incident was probably not entirely unrelated to the pretty white cabbage butterfly on the balcony not so long ago.  As the twitterers advised me, I removed the caterpillars by hand and checked for any eggs.

I can confirm the yellow glove is entirely a product of my own squeamishness. Gotta work on that. The plant is now caterpillar-free and the other plants seem unaffected since so looks like we got them all. Still, I’m very impressed they managed to find my minor kale patch in this concrete jungle. Anyone know if that’s normal? If this happens again I guess I will have to cover it with netting or similar.