Kitchen Garden Forum

broccolli, cauliflower, and plants of their ilk: what is their role in the garden? are they winter hardy, giving subsistance farmers something fresh and green to eat in the winter? do they do something beneficial to the soil (besides lure the slugs away from your tastier plants)? they seem to figure largely in the crop rotations i've seen... if i don't plant them, do i get sent to garden hell? please say it ain't so! ...i'd rather not plant them, but if there's a good reason to try i will... help?

Dear Alia, some of the varieties are hardy some are not, but you don't have to grow them as they do take a lot of room up.

I think it's just that people with larger plots wouldn't be without them.

Hi Alia, OH is right, don't grow anything you don't want to. And anyway, I will be in garden hell with you, I don't always do the right thing (garden wise, at any rate).

Brassicas (which are the cabbages, caulis, sprouts blah blah ) are sooooo difficult to keep pest and disease free, and they need strict rotation in order not to leave various horrors in the soil. I avoided growing them for years, thinking them too much trouble.

We do grow some now, cos we like them so much, especially when there isn't that much else to be had, but they still drive me mad.

Oh! So thats what did it Pongeroon!
JB.

How very dare you, JB

Sorry Miss Tate!!
JB.

ALIA
The garden hell you will be sent to is to never having tasted the fresh buttery home grown cauli's in the middle of winter,
so far removed from the tasteless rubbish the supermarkets sell

If you don't grow the aforementioned brassicas, alia, how do you keep harvesting fresh vegetables from your garden/allotment all through the year? Catherine, in another thread on this same section, has asked what everybody is still picking and a lot of it are the cabbages, kales etc and, if their gardens are like ours, these will keep going well into spring, helped by spring cabbage and broccoli early in the year. So, if you don't grow any of them, presumably you will only have parsnips and possibly carrots and Jerusalem artichokes and your own frozen veggies until you get the first new crops in early summer. Just think what you are missing!

As for the brassicas being difficult: if you start off with clean ground, that is without clubroot, as we were lucky to do more than 20 years ago, and never bring in any, possibly infected brassica plants, what's the problem? Cabbage root fly, brassica aphids and cabbage white caterpillars can mostly be eliminated by physical barriers or, if at all necessary, by chemicals. In any case, you may never get them.

I say, long live the overwintering brassicas!

Monika

Remember, Alia's "garden" is only 9 foot by 10 foot. Also I wonder if cabbages would enjoy the New York snow, which I seem to think can be heavy and persistent some years.

How did you know that, Alan, or are you just kidding?

Monika

No kidding - here's the answer.

As usual, you are right, Alan, I had missed the connection. I would still grow some Tuscan kale (Cavolo Nero or similar), alia. It grows tall and should stand well, even in hard winters, and tastes lovely.

garden hell would at least be warm, unlike our apartment. (brr. winter arrived last night. brr.)

my husband throws up when forced to eat brassicas (thanks for the reminder of what to call them, pongeroon!), so i think i'll try something else.

alan-- i've been reading mel's book (as you suggested) and am so excited! i've divided the plot (er, mentally) into three 4 by 4s and one 3 by 3 (son's garden, where we'll plant sunflowers and carrots and blue flowers)... vermiculite could be tricky to source cheaply. (i feel that amazon's price of $18 for a little bag is a bit excessive)

anyway, now that i know brassicas aren't required, i will use the third plot as an experimental "native american garden"-- corn, beans and squash. (er, unless i go with roses. or or or...)

thanks, guys!

(and my plot is now 9' by 11ish feet. cough cough. there was this communal bark pile behind me no one was using, so we, cough, shifted it a little. about 1 foot 4 inches. now i can have a strip of raspberries too! yea!)

am hoping that space continues to be "communal"... the raspberries need room to grow.

alia wrote:
(and my plot is now 9' by 11ish feet. cough cough. there was this communal bark pile behind me no one was using, so we, cough, shifted it a little. about 1 foot 4 inches. now i can have a strip of raspberries too! yea!)

am hoping that space continues to be "communal"... the raspberries need room to grow.

Alia, I like your style!!!!

give credit to my husband. it was his idea. (well, the one foot part. it looked so good that a few days later i shifted it another 4 inches)

i am a goody two shoes, usually, and am still feeling a little guilty.

(i'll share the raspberries, thus assuaging some of the guilt. )