Grow your own beginner advice needed please

ALIBOBSY

Snowgo, like perp spinach here too. Much easier to grow than "normal spinach which always seems to bolt so quickly.

I have some in the beds and some in pots in the unheated GH-they only went in the GH as the toms came out, so a few weeks, and they are romping away. Chickens love it too lol.

Ali x

brewboy_2

I started a small vegetable patch this year and I think I over fertilised the soil and everything grew like wildfire, not complaining though, I had success with cabbages, beans,peas, brussel sprouts and kale. I had major issues with caterpillars though, has anyone any ideas how to get rid of them, they are also laying eggs everywhere?

ALIBOBSY

brewboy wrote: »

I started a small vegetable patch this year and I think I over fertilised the soil and everything grew like wildfire, not complaining though, I had success with cabbages, beans,peas, brussel sprouts and kale. I had major issues with caterpillars though, has anyone any ideas how to get rid of them, they are also laying eggs everywhere?

Unfortunately the blight of anyone growing any type of brassicas (cabbage, Brussels, kale etc) is the cabbage whites, who lay their eggs everywhere.

Basically you rub of the eggs and pick off and squish the caterpillers-or feed them to the chickens lol. Or you net the beds to keep the butterflies out. I tried another thing which did work, but was a bit gross. Basically you make a mix of bicarb of soda and flour which you sprinkle over the cabbages. Kills the caterpillers really well, but you end up with sloppy, mushy dead caterpillar "bits" all inside the leaves. I used a hosepipe to woosh them out.

I had a couple of kale plants left over and stuck them in the bed at the front. They were literally stripped bare by the caterpillers. But now the caterpillers have died off and the plants have resprouted .

They should really be dying off now as the weather turns colder.

My cat is a good CW hunter, she sits amongst the cabbages and leaps out on them, really gross when she crunches up the wings and stuff , but at least they aren't laying eggs once she has caught them.

Ali x

brewboy_2

Thanks Alibobsy, Looks like the answer is just to spend more time tending to the veg patch and not letting them multiple so quickly lol

annie123

Scroll done a bit and see the before and after pics, you'll be amazed what you can grow in a small area.

http://www.container-gardening-for-food.com/index.html