What slimy_okra said except let me add to it. Water or soap or neem oil will take care of them but you have to be diligent. Spray them off with a water nozzle a couple times a day about 3 days apart for a week or 2. Then, soap the next week about 3 days apart for one week and once every 2 weeks thereafter if the water didn't reduce the populations sufficiently. Funny slimy mentioned cabbage worms -- I don't see any indication either. In fact, I've noticed through the years that(compared to other brassicas) the caterpillars don't attack KALE as much. And Yes... BT for all my Moth(caterpillar) needs. Good stuff. Kevin

I think I finally found the culprit. Symphylans! Never heard of them before today, but from what I've read, this is exactly what I have. So, how did they get into sterile soil-less media? Well, here's a little lesson for all of you newbies like me: In an attempt to find suitable stakes for my very fast growing morning glory seedlings, I ventured into my backyard to snap off some of last year's reed-like growths from some as of yet unidentified bulbs that were planted by the previous owners. I thought I was being clever, but instead I'm very, very stupid since I think I introduced these pests into my pots. D'OH!!!! Does anyone have any experience with these critters? I hope I haven't doomed all my morning glories or anything else for that matter. Here is a link that might be useful: symphylans

I just got back from a long visit to Mickey or I'd have jumped in to bash BSFL sooner. BASH, I say! Kim has a few facts wrong, 'tis true, but in the main I must agree BSFL are the bain of my compost pile. I just can't believe people don't uniformly hate the buggers for their speedy destruction of a healthy compost pile. Why do I hate them, you ask? Is it because I discovered 1000+ under my wool living room rug the summer after my Christmas puppy peed everywhere? Maybe that's a factor, but By Gum I'm an open minded composter. I hate them because they quickly liquify every bit of green material in a pile, without digesting the brown even a tiny bit. My lovely, airy, hot, earthy pile, teaming with beneficial bacteria quickly sinks down to cold solid anaerobic barnyard stinking goo. I struggle to turn it every day to try and get air around, because the grasses and stems are all fully intact stringy fork clogging SOB's. I spread it all out six inches thick for days. I pile it back up. I go to Disney for eight days. I come back again to cold solid anaerobic barnyard stinking goo again. All the larvae are gone, taking exactly their weight of nitrogen with them, far away from my garden. But not far enough away for me. I have tried dry piles, turning every three days to incorporate laid eggs, brown heavy piles, running piles at 150 degrees, all to no avail. If I've got a pile moist and green enough to heat, it WILL have BSFL in it by mid June and through to the end of July. I hate them. On the bright side, on the way home I picked up several baskets of really divine tree ripe peaches from Lane orchards in GA and had a lovely day walking around the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I listened attentively to a sweet volunteer lady explain exactly the organic regimen they use to grow the rose garden. She showed me her display of baking soda, Epsom salt, and alfalfa pellets and grinned the sweetest, elderly lady rose enthusiast grin I guess I've ever seen. I spared her my greensand lecture, since I wasn't volunteering and she was.

I found another one of these things on my deck, this one larger. It has four yellow "tufts", not three. And I've finally discovered what it is -- a tussock moth caterpillar. They are nothing if not unusually colorful. Here's a description and pictures of them. They come in a variety of colors: Tussock Moths in Florida The "tufts" apparently are the caterpillar's defense, will stick in the soft mouths of predators, such as lizards, like porcupine quills if chomped on.