Physical changes in appearance of leaves can indicate caterpillar invasion like the mint and strawberry pictures show. Usually the caterpillars love young leaves and they can either eat the whole leaf or just the under-surface leaving blotched leaves.
2. Poo on leaves. I can almost 100% find a caterpillar when I notice poo on leaves. They look like tiny black beads. I saw them on my calamondin comquot and I really found a brown caterpillar to squash.
Tiny black poo on my annabel daisy leaves indicate tiny caterpillar while larger poo indicates larger caterpillar.
Searching reveal a small caterpillar which dropped onto the potting mix. Sometimes it is tough finding small caterpillars among the leaves especially for really bushy plants like mint and daisy. I will take note and return the next or following day and I am guaranteed to find fat caterpillars...fat but easy to locate because of their size.____________________
It is also good to inspect plants often for egg deposits under the leaves. I have found clusters of white eggs under my tomato silvery fir leaves, collected the leaves in jar and they hatched into tiny caterpillars after a few days. It is difficult to squash each of them so I use hot water to kill them. See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/caterpillar-woes.html
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Every residential area is different. When I was renting in the previous suburb, caterpillar problem was minimal and confined to mainly my buk choy. I had lots aphids issue over there. Whereas at this new place, caterpillars are very prevalent. Since this is the first spring my plants are having here, I will take note and take measures to net my plants the next spring.
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