I have holey cabbages.
It's because of these little munchkins... Little munching machines they are, delighting in thwarting my attempts to grow a cabbage.
They wouldn't even get into focus for me.
If this had been last year, I would have been running around trying to get rid of them. Mixing up chilli and garlic, spraying like a madwoman, arming up the children and roping them into it too.
But this year... I am zen. Flowing with the river, bending like a reed. This year I have learnt that if the plants are healthy they will survive normal amounts of bug attack, and if they aren't, they'll top it, I'll feed them to the chickens, and grow something else.
I am learning to let go of my vegetables.
And to demonstrate, please look at the photos above and below... above, that's a cabbage, with no leaves remaining as such. That's a letting go cabbage. Image below, hardly a hole in sight. That's keeper cabbage.
Bending like a reed I am.
I am still picking off the caterpillars and throwing them to the chooks though.
7 comments:
Hey, Mud Pie, I know the answer to this one! This year I used an old mosquito net to cover my brassicas and I didn't get a single caterpillar. I planted some kale without a net and it was gobbled up in an instant. Old net curtains do the trick too. Gardening like you do with everything mixed in, you could make little individual tents with four sticks and bit of netting.
Here is a link to my blog about it.
http://hazel-dene.blogspot.com/2010/05/okwho-has-been-dining-on-kale.html
it is better than your Cabbage holes rather than chemical treatments
Wow gimme some of your zen I wanna be bendy like a reed! I got so cranky with those cabbage moths and caterpillars I gave up growing brassicas! Although I've heard of Hazel's netting trick and I've thought I might give it a go again - I do love broccoli.
It is getting too late in the season here for brassica - they are more a winter plant in our climate. Now is the time for corn, okra, cherry tomatoes, melons, pumpkins and snake beans to withstand our hot summer!
Hazel, I saw your fabulous macrame creations with the tomatoes, so I can't wait to check out your little brassica tents. I'm never going to let my vegetables know the extent of the care yours are getting!
Pommes I agree, nothing wrong with a few caterpillar holes, it's more like decoration really.
Ooo Veggie I lost it today, there was no reed bending! It was the bananas, I'll post something about it in a bit.
And Donna, I don't know what came over me with the cauliflower, I went a bit wild with it and have it everywhere! I think the back of my packet says sow anytime, so that's what I did, sowed anytime. It will be interesting to see what happens to them. Most of them are in shaded spots, so I am wondering if that will make any difference.
You'll never know if you don't try! Seed packets are skewed towards southern gardeners however. I'd like to know too how Brassicas do in the summer!
Aww thanks for the encouragement Elaine! I am always curious too, lol, I like to know what will happen if I don't follow directions :)
My broccoli are still doing quite well, they had tons of caterpillars at the beginning, but seem to have very few now. I'm sure it was all the lovely rain that pushed them through it, they just got healthy by themselves. Out of four plants I get around a cup of florets a week at the moment, so I am kind of hopeful with the cauliflowers.
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