What's Eating My Broccoli?
Broccoli shares cabbage's fan club, with one extra indignity: pests that hide inside the head you're about to steam. Check your harvest before the pot.
The usual suspects
Cabbageworms and loopers
The signs: Ragged holes in leaves and green caterpillars — and their droppings — lodged deep in the florets.
What it looks like: Velvet-green worms (cabbageworm) or white-striped inchworm-style loopers.
What to do: Net before the white butterflies arrive, Bt while larvae are small, and soak harvested heads in salt water to evict hideaways.
Cabbage aphids
The signs: Gray waxy clusters tucked into the florets and leaf joints — often unnoticed until harvest.
What it looks like: Powdery gray-blue colonies, tighter and waxier than common aphids.
What to do: A sharp water jet into the head, soap sprays before heading, and removing badly colonized side shoots.
Flea beetles
The signs: Shotgun pinholes across seedling leaves in spring.
What it looks like: Tiny black jumpers.
What to do: Row cover early; growth outpaces damage later.
Harlequin bug
The signs: In warmer regions: white-and-yellow blotches where feeding drained the leaf, wilting despite water.
What it looks like: Showy black bug with red-orange harlequin markings; eggs look like tiny striped barrels in neat double rows.
What to do: Handpick adults and crush the distinctive eggs; remove brassica weeds like wild mustard that host them.
Slugs
The signs: Smooth holes on lower leaves, slime tracks at dawn.
What it looks like: Check under leaves and mulch at night.
What to do: Iron phosphate bait and drier evening beds.
When it's not a pest at all
Heads that flower open into yellow blooms aren't damaged — that's bolting from heat, a timing problem. Tiny 'buttons' instead of full heads trace to transplant stress, not feeding.
Or just point your phone at it
Snap a photo of the leaf, the bug, or the droppings, and Harold — the advisor built into Homestead Paradise — names what he sees, tells you friend or foe, and what he'd do next. Honest when he's unsure, and careful where it counts.
Put Harold's Eyes on it — free 14-day trial