I love a good brassica but you have to give them space and you have to keep the Cabbage White Butterflies at bay.

have always meticulously netted my cabbages and still spent hours handpicking caterpillars off the plants.

The Large White caterpillars are easy to see because they’re yellow and black but the Small Whites are very camouflaged.

This year I decided to build a cabbage cage – like a fruit cage – that I could stand up in and move freely about in.  I measured up, ordered all the poles and netting and spent a few days putting it all together.

It’s pegged into the ground with good strong pegs and the netting is clipped on all the way around and so far has withstood some heavy rain and really quite strong wind. It can all be dismantled so that it can be erected over another part of the vegetable garden next year.

I am really pleased with it. It hasn’t stopped the whitefly nor the flea beetles but I haven’t had a single caterpillar on my cabbages and it also stops the pesky pigeons that stripped my sprouting broccoli one winter…