Floppy Brassicas

[amandaandherveg]

It's been raining for days but the sun came out and was very hot for a while yesterday. When I was working in the garden yesterday I noticed that a lot of the leaves on the younger brassicas were floppy. Would this perhaps be as a result of the crazy weather, ie, deluge of rain all week and really cold then hot sun.

It's raining again today and is forecast for the next 7 days ! My OH's kids are over so we're going to bake and make jam !

[Cutecumber]

If this continues, I suspect you may have a root problem.

Pull one of the floppy ones out - if it comes out easily you may find that maggots have eaten the roots. They are half-inch white maggots. This is cabbage root fly.

Another possibility is clubroot. In this case the root is malformed and has large swollen areas on it.

Fingers' crossed it is neither of these and they are just having a bad patch.

[amandaandherveg]

They're looking a bit perkier, must have been having a bad day.

[lynda66]

a couple of my broccoli/caulis (dunno which as they have no labels) were floppy for a couple of days, but are all standing to attention again now ....... i think its the stupid weather.

[zazen999]

We don't have water at the lottie; and when I put some brassicas out a week ago, they all went completely floppy as the rain that was forecast didn't come.

After the weekend rain, they've perked up.

If they are new in the ground, this does happen. But they are quite persistent and will usually recover, unless they have any of the problems mentioned above.