brassica seedlings / transplantation

[Vince G]

So I have two nice brassica cages (which I bought from one of the firms whose ads keep popping up on this site!) Added together, I have protection for an area measuring 20' x 15'.

In late March I sowed short rows of:

White Sprouting Brocc
Purple Sprouting Brocc
Calabrese
Romanesco
Cauli
Brussels
Kale
Red Cabbage
Savoys

I let the seedlings get rather too big and only transplanted them a fortnight ago. The stems on some plants had reached pencil thickness.

A fortnight on, a lot of the lower leaves are still very floppy, so I've snipped them off and am hopeful the transplants will kick on, bearing in mind the central leaves are all erect and it's wet and cool.

The only ones that are not recovering are the 2 varieties of sprouting broccoli - the stems are still bowed over. So I have sown more today. If, by the time these are ready to transplant in a month or so, the original ones have not perked up, I'll bin and replace them.

What are everybody's general thoughts and advice when growing on / transplanting brassicas?

[Bigmallly]

The main thing Vince is to make sure they are well firmed in when planting. I'm not bothering with Brassicas this year but I used to plant them as deep as I could then firm them in with my heel to stop windrock.

[Vince G]

thanks Mal, I tend to plant them deep enough so that the first leaves are just above the soil level, which is what I did with the broccolis, but they don't want to know, mardy gits! I always stake the ones that get tall too.

I wonder if I sowed them earlier that I should've, and they just got too big to cope with transplantation.

Oh well, time will tell.

I still plant them with a chunk of rhubarb underneath to "scare off" clubroot according to the old wives' tale! Actually there's some science in it as oxalic aid wards off clubroot virus.

[Vince G]

Brassicas are a faff though. Just when I bought some nice netted cages to keep the cabbage whites away, we get diamondback moths at the lottie. Me and Mrs Vince love our brassicas, they form a big part of our diet, so much so there's no room in the cages for the swedes and turnips, and we only grow 2 varieties of cabbage. so the fact that we've got diamondback moths is very annoying, and I'm not sure we could afford to cover cages in enviromesh to keep the DBMs out

[Florence Fennel]

Good luck with them Vince - the snugs have done for all mine

[Snoop Puss]

We're the same Vince G. We have a lot of empty beds at the moment and Mr Snoop keeps asking what I'm intending to do with them. They're for our winter brassicas. Like you, we eat loads of cabbage and caulis, especially in winter. We don't have clubroot, but the snails and caterpillars are driving me mad this year. We seem to have a kind of moth or butterfly that only lays one egg at a time. Spotting them and the resulting caterpillars is a fool's errand.

Anyway, hope your plants all perk up.

[bario1]

Give them time Vince, I find they do sulk terribly if transplanted when larger, but they usually pull through.

[Penellype]

I find brassicas terribly fussy things when they are seedlings and I usually lose at least half to "sulking" where the leaves flop and go a sort of papery grey colour and then die. I've pinned this down to being either too hot or too wet or both, so I now germinate them indoors then put the seedlings straight outside on a self watering tray. So far this season this has worked ok, but when I plant them out they have tended to get slugged. My usual technique of using a slice of pop bottle with copper tape round is not working as well as usual this year.

[SaraJH]

Mine got really stroppy when I transplanted them a few weeks ago, they've perked up no end now though, I'm sure that yours just need some time to get over themselves!!