Kitchen Garden Forum

I've found enviromesh works well for most of my brassicas and have set up tunnels that are around 2' 6" high. However Sprouting Broccoli can often grow a little higher and I want to know how to protect them from pigeons & caterpillars.

Would pinching out the growing plant help produce a shorter, bushier plant that is more likely to fit in my tunnels?

Or would you recommend keeping them outside the tunnel and taking my chance with ordinary netting draped over the top? Somehow, the butterflies seem to be able to lay through coarse mesh and I'd need a bigger piece of Enviromesh if I was going to let the plants grow to their normal size.

Hi Colin,
Make a trellis to the height you want and grow your plants like a Cordon Apple. You may not think that it will work but I generally stake my broccoli and a coulple of years ago a high wind blew the plants over at about 30 degree angle and before I could do anything about it the stems were set and only damage would have occurred if I had not left them. I had a brilliant crop! How to learn from a disaster?
JB.

Hi JB, thanks for the tip. At first I thought this was meant as protection against the elements.

I've never trained anything in cordon, so i think you're saying to train them sideways, as a way of keeping their height down? A bit like these windswept trees on Dartmoor

Hi Colin, most of my raised beds are protected with frames made from 2x1 roofing batten, a bit like small fruit cages, fixed to the sides. I use butterfly netting, bird netting or enviromesh depending on what I am trying to protect, and from what. The tops and end covers are fixed but the sides have a batten fixed to the bottom to weight it down and these can be rolled up for access. The frames have been made so I can just about stand up inside (about 5ft). To support tall brassicas, such as brussels and sprouting broccoli, I run wires across the top of the frame and clip canes to them. This has worked well for me for the last few years, no wind damage and no caterpillars.

Regards, Diane.

Just one final question on this subject:

Is there any value in pinching out Sprouting Broccoli, to encourage more growing (and hopefully flowering) points?

Hi Johnboy,

Have difficulty in imagining the young plants growing like that. Do you actually stake them at 45 deg or wait for them to develop then 'blow' them over?

Hi Colin,
As you probably would expect I have never actually grown them like that purposefully they were, as I explained, the result of an accident. Now they grew perfectly well and all the spears grew skywards and were easy to pick. If it can work accidentally then there is no reason why you can not do it deliberately. However this was really only a suggestion as to get Colin M out of a predicament. Without staking Broccoli will lean over and all I was suggesting was to deliberately lean them over to reduce the height.
If you are now as confused as I am I can quite understand why!
Bit of a fist of a posting.
JB.

Don't worry guys, I'm going out this morning to put my baby plants in and prepare the stakes/trellis to bend them suitably.

I'll try to keep a record & show you later in the summer if it seems to work.

In the meantime, any thoughts on the idea of pinching out the tips?

Hi Colin,
A very large NO to pinching out!
JB.