“Gardening is easy!” — said no one ever.
The trials, tribulations and celebrations of gardening
Spring has seen some good progress, and some not so great progress out in the vegetable garden. One of the foods I’ve been hella excited about is our cabbage. I love cabbage. I’ve been itching to make ‘kraut, salads, and kimchi from the cabbage I grew.
But not this spring.
We got hit by the white cabbage moth. Real Hard.
Let me backtrack a couple weeks.
My partner and I were having daily salads. I was weeding and watering every morning, and things were fertilized properly. I was officially gardening, and feeling great. I knew I had a knack for this thing. Gardening? Hard? Please. I got this. Or so I thought.
What started out as the beginnings of beautiful, lush, cabbage heads, turned into a feast for arthropods. I noticed small holes in my cabbage and some of the collards about 2–3 weeks ago, and immediately went to the interwebs, gardening books, and friends to figure out what it could be. Since I wasn’t able to see any small green worms crawling on the leaves, I ruled out the would-be moths. I diagnosed my problem as an aphid issue, so I mixed up the concentration of all dish soap, cayenne and water in a spray bottle and misted away. That should show those insects not to f*ck with my plants. Right?
WRONG.
They tore up cabbage.
And Collards, Broccoli, and one of the Brussels Sprouts stalks.
It was like everything happened overnight. The caterpillars didn’t touch the peppers, but since the majority of the plants that shared this particular bed were Brassicaceae, I was pretty much done for. Lucky for us, the kale is in another bed, and hasn’t been touched. At least we can still have salads and kale juice.
After pulling everything up, I re-composted, fertilized and transplanted more summer weather plants into that bed. It’s now filled with an assortment of heirloom tomatoes and peppers, along with baby carrots and more radishes from seed.
Learning is a result of experience
Getting discouraged is easy. It’s a process, and crawling comes before balling. When summer comes to a close I’ll have a chance to try again with the cooler crops. I’ll pay closer attention and Neem oil will be my friend. I’m determined to have cabbage. After much more practice, I’ll be ready to farm on a larger scale in a few years. It takes patience, repetition and dedication.
On a positive note, potato plants are nearing harvest and the cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers are popping out.
The herbs are loving the warm weather. I’m ready to start drying some of them.
I wonder what else I’m going to learn throughout the summer. The excitement keeps me going!
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Thanks for reading! If you likey, show some ❤️.
