Brassica Challenge

Red Drumhead cabbages guarded by sage and pot marigolds.

Wednesday 18th July 2012

Green, cabbagey stuff

If a non gardener asks what on earth brassicas are, here's what I tell them...

Basically, anything that tastes like cabbage, anything that children don't like the taste of! In fact, I myself only put brassicas on my plate out of a sense of duty.

That said though, maybe if I could grow my own carefully selected varieties, maybe if I learned how to cook them properly, just maybe I could get to like them.

Chic brassicas

So I've scoured the seed catalogues and plumped for: cauliflowers (I do actually like these), Romanesco, calabrese, sprouting broccoli, red cabbage, red sprouts, black kale and curly red kale. Chic brassicas. You may spot a theme of me not liking masses of green, cabbagey leaves.

Carnage

Then there's another problem. Every half-hearted attempt at growing brassicas so far has ended up in total decimation. It seems that, to the animal world, brassicas are irresistible. Pigeon peck them, caterpillars munch them, flea beetles pepper them with tiny holes, cabbage flies burrow into them, clubroot infects them...

Why bother?

Indeed, why do I bother? Well, to tell the truth I never really have, not properly. Every year I grow a few seedlings in modules, generally neglect them, constantly demote their planting sites to bottom of the list for cultivation, and end up maybe planting them out when it is too late. At this stage they get attacked!

I have tried sowing direct - kale, pak choi and Chinese cabbage, but again too many invaders to fight off.

Anyway, I persist, getting a little further each year. For brassicas are part of every rotation scheme going so I feel I really should devote a quarter of my plot to them. That sounds like a lot, but they do need a lot of space and they do stay in the ground for a very long time. And therein lies the best reason for growing them. Winter and early spring harvests of iron rich goodness.

For the moment a successful crop is something to aim for. It's a challenge which I shirk every year. When I finally get there, I'll feel like a proper, old-school gardener!!

A proud Swede-Basher!

p.s. Forgot to mention, a couple of surprises in the world of brassicas...

Radishes and turnips and swedes. (Sue, coming from The North, calls both of the latter turnips, but let's not go there! I, as an Essex boy, was traditionally known as a swede-basher! So swedes definitely must exist.)