Chinese Cabbage Saves the day

So, I normally plant a lot of lettuce that I always end up sharing with the bugs. This year for the first time I decided to throw in a head of Chinese Cabbage in the lettuce section of the garden (top of photograph).

It has been completely destroyed by slugs, and other bugs. However not one of my other lettuce plants have any damage, absolutely none! I was pretty taken aback from the results. I don't use any chemicals or pesticides in my garden.

Chinese Cabbage must be a favorite of the bugs of PA!

I wish that would work with rabbits!

Wow, amazing! I need to get me some Chinese Cabbage. What kind is it? Your lettuce looks beautiful.

I have three kinds in the picture other than the cabbage, Radicchio are the two plants forming heads on the right and right bottom. A loose leaf lettuce called Oak-Leaf which is the whole left line of lettuce and red leaf at the top right almost ready to go to seed.

If you are interested in growing the oak-leaf (which I believe I got seeds from Territorial), growing them close together has seemed to work well for me. The plants don't get as big, but they naturally blanch themselves and maintain a sweet taste.

If you want some of what I think is the prettiest lettuce, plant the Merlot loose leaf variety. It has a good flavor, but adds so much to the color of the garden. If you look really close you can see some of the Merlot patch on the left of the Cabbage and Oak-leaf lettuce. It is an incredible dark red color.

The cabbage itself came with a tag that just said Chinese Cabbage. I don't know a lot about cabbage and this is the first time I have grown it.

I left my last set of mustards and collards in an EB next to my tomatoes. They looked the same as your Chinese cabbage after the army worms and such attacked em. But they left my maters alone.

I've started paying attention and planting bug decoys where I WANT them to attack!

I always let a few things get really ratty and go to seed--I think of it as a throw down gun
(Obviously I watch too many movies)
;)

Thanks Jessums. Great growing. I'm going to plant some decoys too.