These, boys and girls, are my cauliflowers...yup, small, oddly colored and full of yucky worms.
So if anyone is keeping track...my broccoli was attacked by the cabbage root maggot and all had to be pulled. And now the cauliflower is chicken food...all my hopes rest with the Brussels sprouts.
So what did I learn? Research, research and more research and oh yes...don't be lazy, use those floating row covers no matter how inconvenient they are.
Turns out that to get a large head of cauliflower I should have gathered up the leaves and tied them around the cauliflower head when it was about two inches wide, hmmmm!!! Who knew.
And the floating row covers would have stopped almost all of these bugs...aphids, cabbage loopers, cabbage worms and cabbage root maggots. Next year I will be much better prepared.
And now for something beautiful, sweet, and heavenly scented...Honeysuckle. I planted this plus an additional two last year. They were dug up from my friends yard and moved to mine. This one is doing very well but the others did not bloom. Not sure what the problem might be, maybe not enough sun. What did I tell you...research, research and more research...sheesh!
5 comments:
How frustrating!! At least you can learn from these mistakes.
Yes, life is a learning curve. Yes, insect proof covers are a must with brassicas. I think your honeysuckle should be ok, the non-flowering one that is, they are in nature a shady places plant. Best of luck
All that rain is like an open invitation to insects,my problems come in a bigger variety.Five groundhogs have taken up residence in my yard.I have so many entrance and exists dug up by them that I'm thinking of just blowing up the whole yard.Just kidding I'm with you,never give up.Hope you're keeping a garden journal,I can't count on my memory to keep up with all the info.
I've been gardening a long time and I'm still learning : ). Would you have enough time to start a new crop, it is a cold weather plant and if it got to bad you could cover them up.
Have the new plants with some sort of shade to project from the real hot summer sun.
I've seen Brussels sprouts growing with snow all around. Hope you have a good harvest from those little tasties
tc linda
So disappointing. I haven't tried broccoli, cauliflower or sprouts. They take too much room. I do lose a lot of my crops to slugs and late onions to maggots. But I just trim things up and eat the good parts. So far there's enough for all of us that way. - Margy
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