Redouble your efforts or move on?

[Stephen]

When something isn't working do you persist or find alternatives?

Interpret this as you wish but I'm wondering what brassicas to grow, if any. Our record with them is poor at best and if I can pick up a red cabbage at Aldi for 19p, I might as well cut my losses and concentrate on other things.

Am I failing miserably to live up to the standards you all set? I don't want to let the side down.

[Monika]

Stephen, with us no longer having an allotment and being restricted to growing our veggies in the garden, I am concentrating on those brassicas which will stand for a long time but give a continuous and fresh harvest like kalettes/flower sprouts and kale rather than a one plant/one harvest like a cauliflower or red or green cabbage. Like you say, you can buy a red cabbage cheaply and cook and freeze several meals from it but it doesn't have to be picked freshly from the plant.

[tigerburnie]

My coastal sandy soil is hopeless for brassicas and my raised beds not big enough to grow enough brassicas, so I have decided not to bother. I can grow great roots like carrots and parsnips, so that's what I'm doing.

[robo]

People only show their successes they bury their failures ,Human nature I suppose,I can’t grow carrots no matter how I try last year I used two large tubs one on top of the other the carrots were about three feet from the floor and still got destroyed by root fly

[Westi]

Any room to try some in pots, just for the personal challenge Stephen?

I was never won over with the height deterring root fly robo. They are tiny things so would just get blown in the tubs. You will only get success by covering them with mesh from the sowing. Even then you still find the odd marked carrot, probably one or two that has probably blown in when mesh was off for weeding or harvesting.

[Geoff]

In what way do they fail? Miserable specimens, diseased (e.g. clubroot), pests? If your soil is anything but very light you should be able to grow something acceptable. Do you use fertiliser or attempt to get by on muck and magic? Brassicas are one of the hungriest crops. "Know and Grow Vegetables" that I often quote suggests 10 ozs per square yard of 7:7:7 Growmore (pro rata it if you use something different like FBB) for sprouts and cabbage, bit less for cauliflowers and calabrese, it looks an awful lot the first time you use it but try it one season before you give up. Try some strong F1 varieties like sprout Crispus, cauliflower Clapton and calabrese Marathon.