[Jeanieblue]

Help me out here, everybody peoples. My cabbage and kale plants look very forlorn, chewed, limp, more stalk than leaves on some.  But my learned friend - who has done a college course on gardening - reckons that the next time we have rain, something miraculous will happen and they will suddenly grow from strength to strength. I explained that I do water them, AND use ecofriendly slug pellents AND festoon the plot with carrier bag prayer flags ... So what is it about rain versus watering?

[crowndale]

Probably that rain water has less chemicals, can be warmer and maybe falls more uniformly.  Just a guess though, no idea realy!  But no water versus  tap water and tap water would win hands down.

[WG.]

Hi Jeanieblue, I'd be tempted to ask your 'learned friend' to support his/her own theory actually.  

[vegging out]

Are your cabbage and kale protected from pigeons?That could be why there's more stalk than leaf.

[Jeanieblue]

Thanks for your kind comments and ideas. Went down the lottie after our weekend away, and there were four pitful rows of stalks and not much else - and it's had rained all the time we were away.  So spat out my dummy - pulled up the bamboo sticks, string, plastic bags and cds as a job lot - and put the sad brassicas on the compost. Huh.
Still have five perennial brocolli here at home and have planted them on in tomato tubs to bring on.  Is it too late for me to sow some more?