What brassica is the the most pest resistant?

Connormcgregor1 · February 2021

Hi guys

Over the years I have grown most things in the brassica family, in the red rose county (lancashire)

I grow for myself purely organic. However I am sick of haveing the battle.

Slugs snails and caterpillars. ( very bad in Lancashire)

I dont want to use netting, I dont want to use any chemicals organic or not.

I want peoples honest experiences, what brassica is the most pest resistant in an organic situation.

My experience is kale is genuinely by far the most pest resistant.

What's yours?

Any tips will not be wasted, however I want to grow something with me investing the absolute minimum of time and energy investment.

robairdmacraignil · February 2021

Kale is good alright. I really like the red Russian variety and got more seeds delivered for this years planting. It can be a good idea to get them to a fairly established stage before putting them out in the open ground so pest damage is less able to impact them. Also swede or Swedish turnip is fairly robust. The salad leaf rocket (Eruca vesicaria) is also meant to be a brassica and I have that maintaining itself in parts of the garden without any work except picking some leaves to eat at times and a small bit of weeding to make it easier to harvest.

jonathan.cole · February 2021

Last year we lost every single leaf of purple sprouting in a matter of days to caterpillars. Romanesco this year in the next bed over seemed to have little trouble. Don't know if that's the plant or other factors though.

Have you considered permaculture-style companion planting? Using something like nasturtiums as a sacrificial crop or other things to discouraged pests?

Dovefromabove · February 2021

Growing young brassicas without insect netting requires vigilant inspection of the back of every leaf at least twice a day in order to remove every Cabbage White butterfly egg that has been laid ... that has to be done every day from when the plants first start growing in spring until mid to late autumn when the last of the butterflies have disappeared. I have found this to be just about feasible when growing up to half a dozen sprouting broccoli plants ... I am retired and the veg patch is outside my back door.

To keep your brassicas growing through the autumn and winter
until harvest in winter and spring you need to protect them somehow against the depredations of pigeons ... farmers use noisy pigeon scarers and allow skilled and trusted folk to go pigeon shooting for the pot over their fields ... they still lose a proportion of the thousands of plants they are growing.

I know you don’t want to, but we are growing our small crop of purple sprouting broccoli in a netting cage this year ... no caterpillars and no pigeon damage.

I don’t believe there are any varieties of brassica that is not attractive to pigeons. Without netting you have to grow a lot of plants and be prepared to lose some. 😢

Obelixx · February 2021

Netting is the answer. We use it all year now as we have adopted 6 chooks who have free range of the potager so it serves to protect crops from insects and chooks who love cabbages too.

You could make a wooden frame the width of your beds and stretch netting over it then lift and over it as needed as you rotate your crops. We use plastic hoops about 2m long and bent over and held on short metal stakes then stretch and clip the netting over that.

Doesn't work against slugs and snails but no caterpillar damage last year since we put out the netting.

ColinA · February 2021

I have always had grey aphid problems on the allotment along with cabbage white caterpillars and pigeons, last year after reading a post on the forum i bought a 50mtr roll of scaffold netting off Amazon and found this winter virtually no aphids and very few caterpillars and pigeons don't even bother

Dovefromabove · February 2021

We used some old wooden frames (made for stretching artists canvas over for painting - a bit warped and not needed for painting). We stapled insect netting over. The end frame lifts off so we can walk in.

Allotment Boy · February 2021

I agree completely, netting is the only answer to butterflies and pigeons. I have a similar arrangement to @Dovefromabove , just a little bigger as it's on an Allotment & I grow all my brassicas in there. I move it every year for crop rotation. For aphids & whitefly you can use a garlic spray but you have to constantly renew it.

Dovefromabove · February 2021

Trust me ... woodies eat brassicas ... it ain’t city pigeons that eat the farmers’ fields of rape and kale out in the countryside.

If your local woodies aren’t eating your brassicas @philippasmith2 it’s ‘cos they’re stuffing themselves in the farmers’ fields at dawn and don’t have room for any more 😠 😉

https://gardening.which.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/115004323845-Protecting-your-garden-from-pigeons

Skandi · February 2021

I find red cabbage is the most resistant to caterpillars, they go for the green cabbage and broccoli first anyway. fortunately pigeons are not an issue here.

What brassica is the the most pest resistant?

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