Saturday, May 31, 2008

checking on the brassicas

uncovered
cabbage worm kale
I have kept my kale and broccoli under row cover to protect them from the cabbage worms. Today I peeked under for a check. I found five fat green cabbage worms helping themselves to the broccoli. Not too much damage, but the idea was to have no damage. It looks like I will need to replace the cover with one that has fewer holes in it. I left the five fat worms out on the walkway for the hungry baby sparrows and robins.

I think also think the broccoli should be bigger by now. It should be heading. Not sure, but it seems like it. I'm thinking about moving them to my sunnier community garden this weekend.

Brassicaceae

Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have HUGE broccoli plants and no heads yet. My neighbor has tiny plants with tiny heads, about 2" that have bolted. Bad broccoli year here in Illinois. By this time last year we were waist deep in lovely huge broccoli heads.

Daphne Gould said...

I've had the same problem this year. I have row covers over the brassicas and still I get the cabbage pest invading.

kathy said...

Wow. The same problems.

Jaime said...

I have medium sized (about 12-14 in tall) broccoli that have just formed heads (the heads are probably 3/4 in in diameter). They also just got some little holes in the leaves. I looked for bugs and didn't see anything. This is my first year gardening so I don't really know what to do!

kathy said...

Thats great to have heads forming!

I noticed that mine also have tiny heads starting. Smaller than yours. Maybe 1/4 inch, but a start.

I moved half of my broccoli crop to my sunnier community space yesterday. I squished it in between the favas and tomatoes. Today I covered it with row cover. I'm hoping it will do better there.