[WendysLot]

Hello All

I am a bit disheartened.

I have an allotment for the first time and absolutely no exprience and so have been reading lots!

I bought 12 sprouting broccoli plants and proudly planted them in my first bed.

Just 3 weeks later and the leaves have been virtually eaten away.

I have been keeping an eye on them every couple of days.  I noticed whitefly on them and kept knocking them off and sprayed them with an organic soap/fish oil spray.  I regularly picked off the caterpillars.  I covered the bed with mesh (although not fine mesh).

I also added chicken manure to the soil.

I am at a loss as to what I have done wrong.  Is this something I have to get used to on an allotment?

Everyone's vegetables look so healthy.  Perhaps other people spray their brassicas with a chemical spray to protect them from whitefly and caterpillars?

Please can someone advise me.

Many thanks,

Wendy

[Kleftiwallah]

"Win some, lose most" ! ! !  Don't get hacked off.  This happens to everyone, just at different rates.   Whitefly suck the sap from the leaves but caterpillars eat the leaves away. 

I should give your plants a good look over and clear any eggs and caterpillars then cover with fine mesh.   Make sure the mesh is not touching the leaves as the cabbage whites will lay their eggs on the leaves through the mesh if it touches.   Keep optimistic       Cheers,    Tony.

[mumofstig]

You covered the bed with mesh so that rules out pigeons.

That leaves caterpillars and slugs You say you picked off caterpillars but it's easy to notice the yellow/black spotted ones and the yellow eggs of the large cabbage white butterfly. It's much harder to spot the single eggs and solitary green caterpillars of the small cabbage white butterfly.

and slugs are always a pest!

[Trillium]

Sounds like you need a finer mesh for the brassica area as many on here use.

And, you need to talk to others in your allotment and ask them questions on how they do such-and-such. That way you're learning more about your local growing conditions rather than just generalities as we can give here.

[WendysLot]

Thanks all for your comments.

I had a chat to some of my allotment neighbours today who were really helpful.  I do indeed need to get some much finer mesh.

I also discovered that sprouting broccoli plants need to be planted at least a foot apart - oops, mine are about 6 inches apart 

I also didn't realise that my plants will grow quite tall, so, despite the damage to the lower leaves, the new upper leaves may well be absolutely fine if I protect them well with mesh.  Also, this month is the worse for cabbage white butterfly and as the cooler weather comes, this will be less of a problem - although pigeons will need to be kept in check!

Wendy

[Elcie]

Hi Wendy, please don't get disheartened.  We have all experienced these things and they are part and parcel of normal grow your own experience.  I was going to suggest it might be slugs or missed eggs but others have already given you this info.  Good luck and keep going you will get lots of successes too and the plants sound like they might go on to produce some veg too!

[Paul Plots]

Wendy keep at it.... no matter how long we've been allotmenting we all have failures.

Count your successes and learn from all the things that go wrong.
I'm still learning....gradually. 

No two years are alike but as time passes you'll find out what works best for you.
Good luck and keep growing.