Bt is very effective on cats that are half grown or less. So, you'll need to search-and-destroy the larger ones. And because none of your attacked crops need to be pollinated, you can use row cover now, as long as you lift the cover to search-and-destroy the larger ones every day until they're gone. Next season, put it on very loosely when you seed/transplant. This post was edited by jean001a on Sun, Jun 8, 14 at 19:03

Different Bt's work on different species and must be applied daily, preferably in the evening as sunlight breaks it down in under 24 hours. it is a pest specific 'cide and does not work on all leaf eaters by any means.

They aren't identical if you look at them very closely. Your lady bug eggs should be smooth in appearance. Your cabbage worm eggs should have little ridges. You may need a magnifying glass to help you see the ridges. I'll find and link an image of a cabbage worm egg that has been magnified to show the ridges. Here is a link that might be useful: Cabbage Worm Eggs

I still feel like my garden is running on ahead of me on its own timetable and I'm just trying to stay caught up with it. It is hard to explain how far ahead of its usual self it is this year. It has to be the early heat that made everything grow unabated because all I did with the cool-season crops was plant them exactly right on time---not early. Some years I hang on to them for a while and don't get them planted as early as I could because I'm waiting for the really cold nights to warm up. The only difference this year is that it was so warm I planted on time and, also, that we got hot early so that they took off and grew quickly from Day 1 instead of sort of pussyfooting around while waiting for the cold nights to go away. We just weren't even having those cold nights. I'm about to harvest the last of the cabbage, and that normally doesn't happen until mid-June. Most everything has been a month ahead harvest-wise, and that has been consistent from the moment the first asparagus spears popped up out of the ground well over a month early. We may believe we are in control of our gardens, but I'm here to tell you that my garden has a mind of its own this year and it is doing whatever it wants whenever it wants and I just have to pay attention and harvest the stuff when it is ready. Not only did we get cauliflower this year (often, in spring, it is like Brussels Sprouts and bolts before it can produce a head), it was full-sized, delicious and matured really early. Sometimes with the onions, I am getting overly eager for them to hurry up and finish making leaves and to start bulbing up, etc., so I can move on with the succession crop for that bed. This year? As they began popping out of the ground in late April or earliest May, I was standing there sort of wringing my hands and saying "No, no, no, slow down....it's too early." I had been toying with the idea of side-dressing them with some nitrogen to push a little more growth since (I thought) they had plenty of time left to grow, but then I looked at them one day and realized they were mature and that was that. Clearly the words to them to slow down didn't help. When the onions are through, they're through, so now it is just a matter of waiting for the necks to thin out before I pull the plants out of the ground. Since May ran so short on rain so far (about 2" versus our usual May rainfall of almost 6") and I didn't irrigate the onions, they won't be huge. I doubt any will make it to softball sized, but a great many of them are larger than tennis balls and baseballs, and they've achieved that on about 12-13" of rainfall. The standard rainfall or irrigation needed to push onions to achieve their max size is roughly 21" in between the time they're planted in February and harvested in June or July, but mine are plenty big despite not getting even close to 21". I feel like Alice in Wonderland. It would be so awesome if the garden was this fast to produce huge harvests every year, but it isn't, so I'm just trying to enjoy this crazy year for however long the weather keeps everything so happy and productive. Not having the usual level of pests is great and would be wonderful all on its own. Having everything grow fast and produce early and finish up early is pretty amazing on its own. Having the two things happening together? It is beyond belief. And, it isn't just me who has early cucumbers either. You cannot find a Mrs. Wages' pickling mix package at all at the Wal-Mart closest to us, and that tells me that someone else other than me has a lot of early pickling cucumbers. And, to add to the feeling that the garden is running on its own schedule, and not mine, the tomatillos are blooming, and the first zinnias are beginning to bloom, and it isn't even Memorial Day yet. Tim said something a couple of days ago about Monday being Memorial Day and I told him that we aren't even close to the holiday yet--so, you see, the speedy garden even had him thinking it is later in the year than it actually is. The artichokes have produced chokes but since I just have the one plant that survived last year's flooding, I'm not going to harvest the artichokes. I'd rather leave them on the plant and let them bloom so the little flying creatures and I can enjoy them together. There's really not much left to do in the garden----now it is just a matter of maintaining and harvesting.