Fall Cole Crops

[SueCT]

Broccoli Rabe started and I think they are above bunny stage and ready to plant out. The Bunnies usually like the small tender greens, so I hope so!

[Gardeneer]

My broccoli, cauliflowers are still in cot leave stage.
We don't have many bunnies around here. Chicken hawks hunt them.

Of all the things, spinach have not sprouted yet. I know spinach is very tricky in sprouting.
Arugula and fenugreek are growing like weeds.

[b54red]

I am getting really impatient for the cooler nights and days to start soon. It is still too warm to set out my fall crops and the whiteflies are terrible. I really hate to set out cole crops too early as they will set heads way too soon and I will end up with a bunch of one inch broccoli and tiny cauliflowers. I would rather wait and risk it being too cold. I can at least cover them and have a winter crop then.

Bill

[jtjmartin]

I wore myself out with too many tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant this summer so I just planted Kale.

Kale overwinters great in Virginia and I love working outside in the cold and grabbing a few leaves to munch on!

[SueCT]

My Broccoli rabe is just at harvesting stage and full of cabbage worms! So disappointed. Is this likely less of a problem in the spring?

[jtjmartin]

Sue:

All my vegetables are virtually insect free in the early spring.

I can't remember ever having to spray cole crops until my cabbage heads were fairly mature in early summer. I munch many of cole crops right out in the garden and have never encountered any extra protein!

Much different in summer and fall until some cool nights. Cabbage worms can really strip the plants quick.

The good news . . . cabbage worms are really easy to control with Bt which is really safe to use. (I use the mosquito version of Bt too with great results.)

[mensplace]

Sue,
Mine are just like yours...except for the kale, which is flawless. All of the rest were reduced to skeletons quickly. I put in seeds recently since we are not supposed to see frost until the end of November. For the remaining plants, I need to decide on a treatment for the tops and bottoms of the leaves soon. This has been the strangest gardening year ever. At least four days of rain coming after a lengthy period of dryness!

Never seen so many insect pests.

[SueCT]

Our gardening season is coming to an end and they are starting to put away gardening supplies already. I went and bought a new sprinkler at Home Depot maybe 2 weeks ago and they told me they would be removing all the gardening supplies soon, so what is available is probably limited. I only have BT in the form of dunks right now. It also kind of turns me off to consider putting it all over the leaves I am going to eat.

[jtjmartin]

The dunks are likely Bti - a form of bacillus that controls mosquitos and gnats. You would need the Btk form that is effective against caterpillars - so no need for crumbling the dunks!

Others are free to correct me, but I've always considered Bt to be about as safe as insecticidal soap. There's always hand removal!

[SueCT]

I may look when I go out today and see if there is anything left.

[AlittleSalt]

This fall, I'm going to remove the garden fences and supports. Push soil away with a tractor, and forget it was ever there.

[SueCT]

Really, Robert? No more gardening at all any more?

[b54red]

So far I am having a fairly good fall or early winter season. My mustard and turnip plants have done well and we have really enjoyed eating them; but now the aphids are starting to really get bad on them. My rutabagas were planted in a rather shady area and have grown more slowly because of that but they are healthy and forming some nice roots. The big problem has been squirrels eating the center growth tips out of many of my Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. I have finally got some decent lettuce ready to set out this week.

So far it hasn't been cold enough to kill any of my major fall crops even though we have had a couple of freezes. I have my hoops out and set up over my broccoli bed and will try to get them ready for my other beds this week.

Bill

[b54red]

I was finally able to take my hoop plastic off after 8 nights and seven days of my beds being covered. It has been a long long time since we had that many nights below freezing and many well below. The plants look like they have survived better than I had hoped after that long under the plastic. Time will tell how many of my broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower heads froze. I know for a fact that one large head of broccoli was ruined by freezing and will know in a few days or weeks if any others got that cold. My lettuce was very young and seemed to do very well despite the long long nights well below freezing. Any leaves on the plants that were touching the plastic are definitely goners and on the north side of the hoops the cold really seemed to penetrate more than on the other side. I guess from the constant cold north winds.

I am hoping that this good cold spell which was more hours below freezing in just one week than we had the last two whole years here; will get rid of some of the whiteflies that brought up the TYLCV that destroyed my fall tomatoes. I have some more broccoli plants ready to set out for spring and it looks like I will definitely need the hoops with this kind of cold so early in the winter.

My rutabagas and other greens did not fare so well. My larger mustard and turnip plants will have to be turned under but I think my rutabagas will recover. Luckily I picked a huge batch of rutabagas just before the freeze hit and I have been eating the other greens for month.

Despite my loses I am happy to see a real winter down here for a change and hope it will bring a real spring this year so that the fruit on the less heat tolerant tomatoes have a chance to develop some good size before ripening. Most importantly I hope it will lower the volume of pests we have to deal with each year. At least for a month or two.

Bill

[Tracydr]

We had over a week of much lower than normal temps with some as low as 4 degrees. I just took a look at my greenhouse,the citrus look very sad and I may have lost at least some despite running a space heater. The smaller space heater that I usually run couldn’t keep up and it must have gotten below freezing. I lost my Datil and carolina reaper peppers. All the basil plants just melted to nothing.
The garden fared better but I’m pretty sure that most of my winter cole crops are gone. The book choy is brown on the outside but I’m hoping the insides are good. I had already lost the cauliflower and broccoli to goats.
I don’t know about the tiny chard,cilantro or artichokes yet. The collards and kale that weren’t eaten by goats are probably ok.
I’m actually worried we may have lost some local plants it was so cold. I’m worried about my fruit trees as they didn’t lose their leaves this fall for some reason and I planted them just this spring. ( 3 and 5 way apples,pears,Asian pears,peaches and plots).
Like Bill,I really did enjoy the 7” of snow plus cold weather. Reminded me of my childhood in CO.
I hope Bill is right about the pests because the stink bugs and leaf footed bugs were awful the past two summers.