Beginner Gardening: container gardening vegetables first time, 1 by Gymgirl

Gymgirl wrote:

Quoting:Broccoli are problematic. The seeds will probably come up if you put them in a cooler spot, but, depending on where you live, you are probably a bit late. They, like most brassicas (cabbage, kale, etc.), like spring weather and hate the summer heat. They also tend to be pest magnets, and are a big favorite with almost every known caterpillar, grub, maggot and worm.

I grow brassicas quite successfully from late fall all the way through early to mid-Spring (or whenever sustained temps rise enough that they start to bolt).

Growing during the winter has posed no pest problems for me at all. In fact, this last season, I pulled exactly ONE baby hornworm off of exactly one cabbage -- he's the only creature that gave me a challenge the entire winter. When the temps first started warming up, the aphids tried to move in, but I managed to stay ahead of them with a water hose blast and a colony of ladybugs released to the brassica area. The aphids were cleaned up almost overnight! As of today, I have 5 cabbages still growing. Two will get cut this evening as they have split. The other three are pest, disease and split-free so they'll keep growing till the last possible moment to have to cut them.

Brassicas are HEAVY feeders. I used 2 Tbsps. of Bloodmeal (Nitrogen) in the top 4" of potting mix per eBucket at the initial planting, and feed MG water soluable every 7-10 days thereafter when the plants started making heads.

Finally, they like an organic growing medium, so this past season I incorporated more composted leaf mold and homemade compost than ever before. They loved it.

Look.

This message was edited Apr 21, 2010 12:55 PM