WHY THEY DO THIS?

I had to laugh after my youngest daughter sent me a picture of her car with this commentary:

how and why does my car keep getting bird bombed like this UNDER THE CARPORT

WHY THEY DO THIS

Why laugh?  Because I've been struggling to understand something that's happened in the garden that has me feeling exactly the same way.

So here's what happened.

Earlier this spring, I had a bunch of nice little broccoli and cabbage transplants started.  I set them out in the 4' x 8' raised bed, being careful to put one or two little metal sticks beside each plant to protect them from cutworms.  I covered the bed with insect netting to protect it from the cabbage moths and cabbage white butterflies.  All should be good, yes?

Not exactly.

Brassica seedling after a nighttime cutworm attack.

When I checked the bed a day or two later, every plant - every - single - plant - was dead, decapitated by cutworms! 

I'm not sure why the metal stick trick didn't work unless it was because the plants were set out into compost that was very loose, and that allowed the sticks to move so that the cutworms could wedge themselves between the stick and the stem. 

I was so ticked off!

I had a few more plants that I had held back, and I decided I'd go ahead and grow them on in pots for a bit longer.  Those first ones were pretty small, after all.

One evening last week, I took the two biggest and nicest broccoli plants and put them in that same bed.  Again, sticks beside them, being very careful to get the sticks as close to the stems as possible.

The very next morning:

Poor little decapitated broccoli plant.  When I dug around the base, I found the culprit and relocated it to the platform bird feeder.  I hope a bird had a good meal out of it.

I was furious!  Why????  What did they gain by just cutting the top off the plant?  It's not like the plant  can keep growing and feed them for longer...it will die.  

I actually asked The Google, "Why do cutworms cut?" No one had an answer for that.  There were lots of articles saying things like, "They're called cutworms because they cut the stems of young seedlings."  Well, DUH.  But WHY?  What do they have to gain from that destructive and seemingly senseless behavior?

I still don't know.

But in an attempt to have some broccoli this year, I've resorted to a somewhat drastic approach.  Sticks by themselves?  Out.  Aluminum foil, or sticks with aluminum foil?  In.  Definitely worth a try anyway...anything to protect the little stems.

So the last of the broccoli plants have been put out in that same raised bed and wrapped in foil.

Wrapped in a blanket of aluminum foil.

After doing a bit of reading about cutworms, I think one of the reasons they may be worse this year is because I've switched to no-till.  Apparently, tilling is one method of controlling them. 

Tilling the garden in early spring and fall can help kill cutworms or pupae or expose them to the weather and to predators such as birds.

https://www.pesticide.org/cutworms#:~:text=Controlling%20weeds%2C%20grasses%20and%20plant,to%20predators%20such%20as%20birds.   Accessed 4/15/2024.

So as I work in the garden from now on, I'll be on the lookout for them any time I do any planting.  After I set out the new broccoli plants, in one little 2' section of a row that was about 1' wide - a spot where I intended to plant carrots - I found eight of those rascals! 

Cutworms from the carrot bed.

I kindly relocated them to the bird feeder (most probably escaped over the edge into the front flower bed).

So while I had thought I'd call this post, "Why do cutworms cut,"  I have decided that I like her question better.  

WHY THEY DO THIS?