[Spana]

Just bought a packet of kale Winnetou. Its the first time i've grown it and just wondered if it will attracts cabbage whites and need protecting. I dont get bird damage but do get a lot of caterpillars on cabbages which is why i've stopped growing them. Have i just taken on another load of netting problems.

Thanks

[rachelsco]

im no expert but i would of thought if the harvesting period is say oct to april (overwintering) then that is when it is mostly picked for eating, and i dont see too many caterpillars/butterflies around at that time.
so..... if you can get it through the summer by netting and picking off the little beasts, get it big and healthy to get through the winter then come harvesting time it should be good to go.

as i said im no expert but this has worked for me with other overwintering brassicas.

Pigeons though, they are another story

[Beetroot queen]

Kale for me in a nightmare which is a shame as I like growing it, even netted it's covered in White fly, clouds of the blighters. Even in winter, I am not sure if enviromesh would be better than debris netting but it's seriously put me off and enviromesh is not cheap

[sowitgrowit]

This will be my first year growing Kale too.  I was told it was easy-least.  I'm not sure if that is in comprison to other veg, or other brassicas (which I struggle with).

[rosegarden]

I grow kale every year and it definitely will need protection from pigeons!!  Also don't forget to stake it as I grow mine on a site which is quite windy and it will suffer  Also water well.  Good luck it does taste delicious!!

[Spana]

oh, i'm wondering now whether even to sow it.

We've got a hard, difficult and busy summer here and i've been trying  to simplify my growing. Taking netting off to hoe and putting it all back over is not what i want this year. I think i'll save the seed for next year when i'll be retired and i'll have all the time in the world, cough, cough.  :nowink:Thanks for your help everyone, dont know what i was thinking. 

[shokkyy]

I grew curly kale last year for the first time and really liked it. It's been cropping away all through the winter and it's just starting to bolt now. I've always hated kale before, but when it's picked fresh I love it to bits and it's the easiest and most productive crop I've ever grown. All I did was sow and plant it, job done. It did get attacked by whitefly in the warmer weather, but that stopped as soon as the temps started to drop. And in the hot months  we weren't really eating it too much because we had loads of courgettes, mange tout, peas, runner and French beans cropping at that time, as well as leaf beet and chard. I didn't net it and despite having a vast flock of pigeons hanging round my garden they didn't touch it, nor did the cabbage whites. The only thing I'd change this year is I might stick the overwinter plants in my tunnel, because the leaves were a bit battered and discoloured by the weather, and when it's a leaf crop it's just nicer if the leaves are nice and clean.

PS I grew black Italian kale as well, and I know it's highly rated for taste, but we didn't like it at all.

[solway cropper]

I only grow dwarf green curled and it definitely does attract cabbage white caterpillars so I net it till later in the year. Oddly, although we have plenty of pigeons and doves around they never seem to bother with it.

[devonbarmygardener]

I net all brassicas regardless!
Hate cattypiddlers!

They even attacked my Black Kale last year and they don't normally. So no brassica is safe!

[compostqueen]

I love Tuscan kale. Good stirfried with chilli and black mustard seed 

I always grow various kales. I like the pretty red frilly one which looks great planted alongside leeks.  The low growing ones are a boon and they are always putting forth plenty of fresh greenery. I like to plant plenty of calendula amongst them

[shokkyy]

Actually, the year before last I surrounded my bed of brassicas with climbing nasturtiums going up the fence around the bed. It absolutely worked like a charm. The nasturtiums were swarming with caterpillars but not one touched my brassicas, with no netting at all.

Last year, the self-seeded nasturtiums were coming up by the hundred, all over the place, so I didn't plant any more and used netting. But then the netting drove me insane because it made it incredibly labour intensive just to do a bit of weeding and feeding.

There has to be a happy medium somewhere

[compostqueen]

You can feed with liquid manure or seaweed through the Enviromesh though.  I tend to mulch my plants with muck so there's no bare soil to get weedy and they get fed too

[snowdrops]

Last year I was trying to cut down on the weeding when netted, so I did a version of AngelaDavis's lasagne bed.I put about 4 sheets of newspaper all over the bed,covered it with compost from my bins,then covered it with weed suppressant membrane & planted the brassica's through crosses cut in to the membrane,before netting with debris netting,that is still on now. I haven't weeded since planting. It took a while to get to planting but it saved lots of time by harvest time.
Well that's how I would like it to have gone,but in truth I had already got some brassica's in the bed before I decided to to go down the lasagne bed route,so I had to fit the newspaper around them,top with compost,& then spent ages threading the plants through the membrane. If anybody had been watching me they would have thought I had gone mad
If you do go down this route remember to water the paper well,helps when it's windy,stops it blowing away,then water the compost before putting the membrane down.

[Nikkithefoot]

I have to keep everything netted as we have deer and rabbits to contend with on our site, as well as the butterflies etc.

I use debris netting and find that providing the area is well weeded before the plants go in then you only need to remove the netting once or maybe twice in a season to weed. The debris netting really does keep the weeds down.

To help reduce the white fly I interplant with marigolds, does seem to help to reduce the whitefly. I carried out a plot experiment a couple of years ago. 2 adjacent areas with brassicas in, both covered with debris netting, one interplanted with marigolds the other just the brassicas. The interplanted group definitely had less whitefly than the other lot.

[devonbarmygardener]

I love Tuscan kale. Good stirfried with chilli and black mustard seed 

I always grow various kales. I like the pretty red frilly one which looks great planted alongside leeks.  The low growing ones are a boon and they are always putting forth plenty of fresh greenery. I like to plant plenty of calendula amongst them

Ooh like the idea of growing leeks between the black kale.
Every bed on my allotment is edged with marigold or calendula - great for whitefly and blackfly