This is my first attempt at vegetable gardening and its not been an unqualified success. I knew that gardening in the shade of a Walnut Tree would present problems and the hot rainless summer did not help. However, the potatoes have not been bad and the Broad Beans as well. The Carrots hardly germinated, the Onions hardly moved, and the Brussels Sprouts reached for the sky, and as a result need staking and both they and the Cabbage plants have been wrecked by butterflies.
Two questions:
1. Farmers who grow cabbages obviously deal with butterflies but I find the pesticides very expensive and a rip off so what can one do?
2. What can I still plant at this time of the year?
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
Easiest most environmentally friendly thing to do to keep the cabbage butterflies off the cabbages is grow them under row cover.
https://gurneys.com/product.asp?pn=2005&utm_source=cs&utm_medium=base&bhcd2=1279492122
You need to put up some kind of hoops which can be a variety of materials (I use the wire frames from old political yard signs) and then drape the row cover over it and stake/weight it down at the bottom. It costs a bit to buy, but you can re-use season after season.
All the cool weather plants can be re-planted for fall crop - that would be your cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, lettuce, spinach, peas etc. Depending on when frost hits for you, you could still do quick growing warm crops... radishes for sure, but probably beans as well. The cabbage will do better in the fall- the butterflies will be gone for the season, not still making more worms.
https://gurneys.com/product.asp?pn=2005&utm_source=cs&utm_medium=base&bhcd2=1279492122
You need to put up some kind of hoops which can be a variety of materials (I use the wire frames from old political yard signs) and then drape the row cover over it and stake/weight it down at the bottom. It costs a bit to buy, but you can re-use season after season.
All the cool weather plants can be re-planted for fall crop - that would be your cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, lettuce, spinach, peas etc. Depending on when frost hits for you, you could still do quick growing warm crops... radishes for sure, but probably beans as well. The cabbage will do better in the fall- the butterflies will be gone for the season, not still making more worms.