Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: andyww2013 on October 07, 2018, 07:55
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Hi,
I have quite a good crop of Kale. It’s covered with enviromesh. It’s been like this since it was planted out.
Is it safe now to remove the cover now, or are there still predators about that’ll strip it?
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where I have my plot the pigeons are eating the uncovered Brassica and the top of Brassica that are poking through the netting. I would thinkyou should keep them uncovered till harvest
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If its cabbage white and their caterpillars that are stripping your Kale, then I would say yes as they are gone now.
If its birds, then maybe you should keep it on.
Always been lucky with my kale and never covered it.
I have grown Westland Autumn like that for years outside with no cover and never had a problem.
Tried a few new varieties this year, Fizz, Red Devil and Borecole Nero without cover and all have been fine.
I grow Kale all around my garden in differing positions.
My neighbour does the same and has always grown Dwarf Garden and Black Nero for many years uncovered outside without problems.
Last few years I have given some plants to my Dad of my Westland Autumn and he has not had any problems either growing uncovered.
We must be just lucky as often read on here that Kale gets attacked.
We all do feed our birds on bird stations every day and have loads of all kinds feeding birds. But never seen them or had any problems with them on the garden. But then our cats patrolling would put them off trying :)
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All our brassicas have to keep some sort of cover to protect from pigeons >:( , but we replace the finer mesh with something wider if we have time. Lets the whitefly out/the insect predators of the whitefly in, otherwise they survive the hardest frosts. And the wider mesh doesn't hold the snow like enviromesh - we have lost whole crops with snow on the mesh, everything collapses and breaks the stalks, then to add insult to injury, the pigeons get there before us in the melt and strip everything they can! :mad: :mad: :mad:
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Mine got stripped over the winter … >:(
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cabbage white butterfly were still producing caterpillars in Jan this year
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I've taken the debris netting off my winter cabbage and kale - I swapped it for a more open one, just to keep the birds off. I've not seen any cabbage white b/flies since we had the frosts last week, and prefer the other beasties to have access to the whitefly on them.
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cabbage white butterfly were still producing caterpillars in Jan this year
Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! :( I suppose the Beast from the East got the caterpillers ... so much good it did them!
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I have to keep all my brassicas covered if I want to get a crop. If you don't net it, you don't get it on our allotment! The pigeons are the size of turkeys. The birds get especially hungry in winter as other food sources dry up.
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I'm keeping my brassicas covered. In winter, a bed of brassicas is like an island of lovely food in an ocean of sparse bleakness to a pigeon.
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I think I'll keep them covered then, they seem happy enough