Death to cutworms!

One of the advantages of growing vegetables in containers is that you don't need to worry about cutworms coming along and felling them. When we transplant cucurbits or nightshade vegetables into the ground, each one gets a security perimeter known as a "cutworm collar".  The collar is just an open-ended food can that sticks at least half an inch above the soil surface. I don't know how far the collar should penetrate the soil, but any size of can you can get around the transplant is probably tall enough to keep it safe.

All the melons, peppers and basil went into containers this year, due to my belief that melons and peppers like their roots to be extra warm and that basil would be less at risk of being lost and forgotten among tomatoes and weeds (its usual fate here). Barry did the transplanting and I assured him that cutworm collars were not necessary. This is probably the case if one fills the containers with new sterilized container mix each year. If, however, one just reuses what remains in the container from the prior year (it looked arable), there is a chance that some Noctuid moth dropped an egg or two or a thousand at the site last summer. The morning after the transplant, I noted that in one container the very small basil had disappeared and one of the peppers had been rearranged from an upright structure into a small heap of leaves. My prime suspect was Adventure Cat, the poorly socialized (to humans) tomcat from down the street. He has been known to interfere with our garden. A week later the remaining pepper vanished from the container and I began to think it was an inside job.  We removed the contents of the container scoop by scoop and found the fat little culprit curled up in a horrible grey-brown ball.  There is no picture here because the creature was quickly rendered unidentifiable by Barry's shoe.

Did we immediately surround the other container transplants with cutworm collars?  No.  Foolhardy, maybe, but it doesn't seems so risky if they are all still standing after nine days.  Besides, I'd want to use a fairly large collar (think industrial-sized ketchup can) to avoid damaging spreading roots, and that would result in as much area being inside the barrier as outside.  On which side of the barrier would the cutworm be?  Also, the ill-fated container was the only one in which the contents had been undisturbed prior to planting.  The others had last year's soil, but also some packaged topsoil and peat mixed in, vigorously.  Hard to say if that made the difference.  We'll just hope for the best and be more security conscious next time.