Fall webworm
I haven't seen a single tent caterpillar this year, but the fall webworms (Hyphantria cunea) have come to visit our farm for the first time ever. I'm not glad to see them.
Like tent caterpillars,
webworms hatch out in large groups and then spin webs around themselves
to protect their tender bodies. Since predators can't easily get to the
caterpillars inside, the insects make short work of leaves within their
webs. In our yard, the webworms have invaded the red raspberries,
elderberries, pears, and hazels.
The good news is,
clipping off the affected limb and throwing it over the hill seems to do
a pretty good job of protecting the plant in question. So I guess
webworms are more of an annoyance than a scourge. They would have been
even less annoying if I hadn't waited two weeks to identify and deal
with them, afraid that a new and terrifying invasive had come to call!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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