Tips for Growing Cabbage Family Crops

Most gardeners know that when it comes to growing cabbage family crops, insects are likely part of the package. In my garden, these crops are susceptible to slugs, aphids, cabbage worms (which are the larvae of the cabbage butterfly), and sometimes even pillbugs. Talk about your bug magnets, eh?

Members of the cabbage family (a.k.a. cole crops or Brassicas) include broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kale).

Whenever I plant them, I take a couple of extra steps and am rewarded with perfect produce at harvest time. Those steps are organic, too, so I know our food is safe to eat. Here’s my routine: (and remember that you can always click on the photos to view a much larger image)

Once I’ve planted the seedlings, I make small rings of Corry’s copper tape (refer to photo) and place one around the base of each plant. If you’ve never heard of this stuff, it works great to keep slugs off your plants. The skin of slugs reacts electrically with copper so they want nothing to do with it and will head the other way. I make sure the copper tape makes good contact with the ground. I also check to make sure no plant leaves are touching the ground outside each copper ring because that would provide slugs with a ramp up into the plant. We can’t have that!

Next, I sprinkle diatomaceous earth around the base of the plants. This might seem like overkill but it’s partly to really make sure slugs stay away and also to prevent pillbugs and sowbugs from nibbling the tender stems of the leaves.

To keep the aphids away and the cabbage butterflies from laying eggs on the plants’ leaves, I place hoops over the bed and lay a sheet of floating row cover on top of the hoops. The row cover acts as a physical barrier that the cabbage butterflies and aphids can’t get through. I can leave the row cover over the plants for the entire season because none of the cabbage family crops needs to be pollinated. So, as soon as I plant the seedlings, that cover goes over the bed. I weight down the edges to make sure it won’t blow off with a gust of wind.

While these steps might seed tedious, I have to tell you they are completely worth it because I never have aphids or worms on any of these crops. And that makes growing cabbage family crops much more worth it!