The boss loves Brussels sprouts. Her father bakes them with olive oil and salt (he has a heavy hand with both) and she pops them like candy. So I always grow a few plants. I’ve never had overwhelming success. Sure we’ll eat Brussels sprouts a few times a week for a month or so, but not once has she said, “that’s one too many Brussels sprouts mister.” I’m defining that as success. Tonight at dinner she almost turned down fresh salsa because she felt she’d been over doing it on the tomatoes. I’m not familiar with that concept, but it’s been a successful year for tomatoes.
The twin difficulties with sprouts are that they like cool weather and take a long time to grow. I start some of the other crucifers in early spring and have my first big harvest in July. The broccoli is still going strong. I froze the big heads, got rid of a few of the plants then have cut the second and third sprouts throughout the summer. It’s now September and we’ve been harvesting steadily for over two months. I even gave the neighbors some second cut broccoli and they couldn’t tell the difference.
Brussels sprouts just aren’t as hardy in the heat. I’ve planted them in the spring and they languish all summer. They make it, but they look sad, wilty and flop over. They usually don’t start making sprouts until October or November and by that time they are huge sprawling, unhealthy looking plants.
So, as I is my habit, I tried something different this year. I seeded the Brussels sprouts indoors in June. When the garlic came out in July I transplanted the seedlings into what seemed like scalding heat. Despite some losses to mammals (I’m looking at you Zipper), they seem to have done quite well and were looking pretty helpful.
Then the nasty cabbage butterflies showed up and the leaves started looking terrible. Again, in the past I’ve shrugged and decided that they’d make it, and they always did, but this time I got serious and broke out the Bt. Bt, as I’ve mentioned before, stands for Bacillus thuringiensis. It’s a soil dwelling bacterium that happens to make a toxin that kills caterpillars. Because it’s “natural” it counts as organic. It’s a biological control, like spraying lions on your gazelle problem. I still tend to avoid it and focus on picking caterpillars, but I really wanted success this year (see above for definition).
So I squished the big caterpillars then sprayed some Bt down into the growing tips and along the leaves. I then left for a week.
When I came back I had tremendous healthy Brussels sprout plants. Still no sprouts mind you, but healthier plants than I’ve ever had. It feels like cheating.
My pest control methods have always relied first on prevention: floating row covers, crop rotation and getting rid of garden waste. My second line of defense has always been picking eggs, adults and larva and crushing them. In the fall sometimes I put the chickens in there to find as many larva as they can.
This time I just sprayed some stuff in a bottle and the bugs went away. I imagine that when the first pesticides were introduced to farmers it must have seemed like magic. It’s one thing to control the bugs in a small garden with picking and row covers, but in a multi-acre field it would have been nearly impossible. Of course there were insect predators that kept populations in check, but crop failures happened.
Nevertheless I don’t think I’ll make this a habit. The caterpillars and butterflies play a role in the ecosystem and the butterflies are actually kind of pretty. Hopefully I’ve given the plants a head start and now they’ll be able to fend off the next bunch of caterpillars. I did see a cabbage white fluttering about them today and I’ve got an itchy trigger finger.
