Battle of the Brassicas

The idea of a French-style Potager where vegetables, herbs and fruit jostle attractively with cottage garden flowers, is very appealing.   However, if I tried the aesthetic approach with the cabbages, they wouldn’t last long.  The red varieties are particularly beautiful but all brassicas need more care and attention than other crops because they like specific growing conditions (lime) and they are plagued by pests.

The raised bed allocated to the brassicas this year does not look pretty but it is a very effective vegetable fortress and keeps all the cabbage-loving critters at bay.  The mesh is very fine and will keep the pigeons and insects out.  Cabbage white butterflies have to flutter by too.  They like to lay their eggs on the undersides of the leaves.  The eggs grow into caterpillars that then eat all the leaves.  As for the slugs, the bed has been treated with biological nematodes and for double measure, each plant has a sprinkling of organic slug pellets too.

In addition, each cabbage has a collar round the base to protect it from cabbage root fly.  This little demon lays its eggs on the soil at the base of the cabbages and when the eggs hatch, the maggots tunnel down to feed on the roots, effectively killing the cabbage. I buy packets of cabbage collars but they are expensive and I must start making my own from bits of old carpet.  They are simple enough to make, for each one you just need to cut a smallish circle, cut a straight line halfway through the circle and then cut either side so it forms a Y shape.  Then you just slip one around the base of each plant, though you need to be careful you do not damage the stem – I always have a few spare plants waiting in the wings just in case.

This year I am growing some pointed, small Hispi cabbages, white cabbages for coleslaw and our favourite red cabbage for an autumnal, spicy braise to go with pork.  Checking on progress will be challenging though.  I might need some SAS training to get under the mesh.