Cabbage question...

thriftwizard

Please does anyone know why my cabbages at the allotment just keep turning into greenish-white slime? This is our 4th year on the site (which was new, previously a pasture field) and each year I've tried to grow a handful of cabbages; different varieties, and in different spots. Hopefully I've given them enough space; I've covered them when they're tiny to keep the rabbits off, and through the summer when butterflies might be about, then taken the cover off to give them enough light as the days get shorter. They looked pretty promising when I removed the cover this autumn, but now, once again, all but one have just dissolved into slime! The one that didn't had escaped from under the net early on & got savaged by caterpillars; the outer leaves are lace, but the heart looks just fine. Kale, chard & purple sprouting do well over there; brussels etc. don't tend to do so brilliantly but don't dissolve either.

Might it be to do with removing the cover, somehow? Or do they need some lime or sand dug into the bed or something? The roots look fine, not bulbous; it's just the head & stems that rot. The soil is pure clay, which we've been mulching with a combination of used chicken bedding, well-rotted manure & chopped-up comfrey leaves, and the beds we're mulched are much easier to work now, and have lots of worms, which were in very short supply 4 years ago. We also apply wood ash when there's enough. My suspicion is that it's probably do with poor drainage (there was a hard-pan about 6" down which we've gradually broken up - we had two years of L-shaped carrots!) and lack of light; the field hedge next door has grown up & shades most of my plot. I'm not hugely worried if I can't grow cabbages over there; they're not expensive to buy here & there are sources other than supermarkets. (What tiny little cabbages they sell!) But I'd like to find out what's going on, and whether I can do anything about it.

twopenny

2 ideas come to mind. 
Depending on where you are we have had some mild winters and a lot of rain so spores + wet.
Then you are feeding them, it sounds quite richly which will make them soft. Comfrey is high in potassium for flowering, wood ash for fruiting, which you don't want. Nettles high in nitrogen which you do for leaf growth would be better.
Sounds like you are encouraging soft growth which would make their compact leaves liable in a way that open leaved greens are not.
I've had primulas and dwarf daffs rotting this year.
I had some advice at the begging to tred the soil around brassicas for good growth. You'd have to be careful with clay but it's good advice.

Farway

What variety are you trying? Maybe the ones you have are more suitable as summer / autumn ones and not tough old crinle leaved Savoy?

thriftwizard

Thanks, @twopenny, it's quite probable that I am indeed "overfeeding" them. Nettles do get chopped up & added to the mix if I'm quite sure there are no seeds set - we have 60m of nettles along the "hypotenuse" edge of our triangular plot, all of them very keen to scramble through the wire-netting fence & colonise, along with the brambles & creeping buttercups - as does anything I think might contain something useful! (Though we do eat the nettles, too, but only the ones we can reach - we have no access to the other side & the farmer's not overkeen on helping us; too busy) The soil in our corner was - just clay, with lumps of flint & odds & ends of archaeology - when we got onto the site, and we only found two worms in the whole 110 sq. m. when we first dug it over, which is why I'm adding just about any organic matter that comes my way. The worm population is much healthier now - needless to say, so are the slugs!

@Farway, I've tried several different varieties - Greyhound was one, and the last lot were January King if I remember correctly. But none of them have been Savoys, which I do love & are definitely a bit more open-leaved; I'll hunt up some seeds & try those. 

Farway

I think January King is clased as Savoy type but there seems to be lots of similar types at a quick glance, amybe it will comne down to trial & error in your particualr spot

https://www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk/Vegetable-Seeds-1/Reds_3/

thriftwizard

Well, I was down there today to start tidying up after all the wind & rain, and strangely, the cabbages I didn't get round to ripping out to dispose of seem to be developing new, healthier-looking heads! Even one that was in the "dispose of" bucket (not being sure whether it might be something catching) root-down; the bucket has filled with water, the plants that were head-down are rotting gently, but this one is putting out a nice little deep green head! (About dandelion-sized right now. If nothing else, they'll be free greens for my poor incarcerated chickens in a few weeks.)

Looking at one or two plots on the site up the road from our house, other people's cabbages also seem to be turning to slime; that includes one of the joint site managers, who went to horticultural college back in the 60s and has worked as a gardener ever since. Which cheers me up a little, as a) I'm not alone, and b) even the professionals seem to be having trouble with this. The soil's quite different over here, a nice loam that's been worked continuously for (literally) centuries.

Anyway, came back with parsnips (first time I've ever managed to grow any) & some respectably sized leeks (so they should be, they went in in May) the chard & kale are looking good, there are carrots & beetroot in window-boxes in the garden and I now have a hint of something cabbagey, so I'm happy!

twopenny

I'd tie a label written in waterproof ink to the cabage of the professional asking what the slim is - and add your phone number.
It does seem like the external wet and warm, followed by cold weather could be at fault.
It reminds me of supermarket salad leaves that go slimy quickly in the salad drawer. 

thriftwizard

@twopenny, I might just go & knock on his door - he used to live opposite, now lives up on the main road, and his son used to spend hours playing with my two elder boys! I need to ask him for a couple of cuttings of the Chaenomeles quince in his front garden; it's a female, and all mine seem to be males, and I'm trying to grow them for the fruit, which makes fabulous marmalade, especially when mixed with Cydonia quinces, of which we have two trees.

twopenny

Go for it. Wonderful to know someone like that.

I tried to take a cutting of the Daphne I wanted in a lane hedge but it wouldn't come off subtley.

Garden centre prices are crazy now and everything grown for effect at sale. Made into multi stem or to get a single stem you pay a fortune.

You must have a lot of determination to make anything from Quince. Tough little so and so's. I keep my eye out for local produce at open garden events and let someone else do the work.

It will make my year if the open gardens are able to come back again.

thriftwizard

@twopenny, we have rather a pretty pink Daphne - full size, not a dwarf; I could take a cutting & send it to you, if you like?

twopenny

Thriftwizard, that's really kind of you. It sounds lovely but I'm not sure about how they'll take after drying out in the post.

I'll get up to the big garden centre next week and see if they have some and how much. Being a new garden from scratch I'm fed up of being patient. Stuff takes so long to grow to a decent size and I know I've crammed too much in