I've never grown brussels sprouts before, or anything in the brassica family. A few weeks ago, I noticed the big holes in the leaves. Checking my fave gardening book, I thought it was cabbage worm/loopers and that it probably wouldn't get out of hand even if I didn't do anything about it.
Then, I noticed a lot of black dots on the stalk, where I think the sprouts should be growing. Now I'm not sure if it was cabbage worm to begin with, or if it's cabbage worm and something else. So my questions are:
1) Does anyone know for sure what this is?
2) Does anyone know what to do about it? (I want to keep my garden organic or near to it, so I'd actually prefer to lose the crop than to use harsh chemicals.) Is it even salvageable at this point?
The first pic below shows the teeny black things that are really 3-dimensional, not spots. The next 2 pics show the leaves.
