I have lost one brussels sprout and three broccoli plants either to squirrels or birds. Which ever it is it kept digging them up and snapped a few stems during daylight hours. I'm betting on the squirrels, I swear I am going to go on a squirrel massacre one of these days! I did finally spread a lot of really hot cayenne pepper powder around and it seemed to have deterred it, knock on wood.
The other bad is cabbage butterfly caterpillars. They have been having a field day eating away. The dumb part is I ordered Bt concentrate with one of my spring seed orders and never used it. So after the caterpillars had done some serious damage to a few plants I finally sprayed. It was my first time using Bt, it is supposed to be really good stuff and is non toxic and organic.
This photo and the one below are the ugly although not overly ugly. The photo above is what most of the remaining 11 broccoli plants look like. I will keep up my Bt spraying and hopefully they will not look like swiss cheese soon.
Here is an ugly brussels sprout plant. I found last year that the cabbage butterfly caterpillars particularly like brussels sprouts. I will keep up my spraying on theses as well.
Now for the good, The Romanesco broccoli are starting to come into their prime. I planted these a month after planting the broccoli this spring after reading that they are less cold tolerant. In retrospect delaying planting will give me a nice harvest in between the first and second crop of broccoli. In behind the romanesco are the second crop of broccoli, late planted brussels sprouts as well as a bunch of weeds.
Here is a close up of the head forming on the Romanesco broccoli. This particular one is about the size of a tennis ball and the other one is about half that size. I am guessing they will be ready for harvest in two weeks.I am almost done updating, all that is left now is the root crops!
.jpg)
