Using Row Covers to Give Your Brassicas a Boost!

by Jami @ An Oregon Cottage

Do you use row covers in your vegetable garden? I have used a lightweight floating row cover for years after having broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower (brassicas or cole crops) plantings ruined from aphids (and no, there is no way to rid an infested broccoli head - I tried!). But in the last few years I have learned that growing them under cover has amazing growth benefits, too!

using row covers to give your brassicas a boost, gardening, homesteading, pest control

I learned this through an unofficial experiment when I had more seedlings than I could fit into the designated bed - and took a few pictures to prove it:

Here are three cabbage plants after about a month in the garden without any covering (ignore the "Baby Boo" pumpkin sprouts - they are volunteers I let trail over the edge eventually).

Note: the reason they are planted so close together is because they are a small variety called 'Gonzales' and don't need the same spacing as full-sized heads.

And here are the other cabbages I planted AT THE SAME TIME as the plants in the previous photo, but in a bed that was covered with a floating row cover. These are different varieties (so I don't get 10 heads of cabbage all at once, ha!), but there are Gonzales planted here, too, and they are all 3-4 times bigger!

The only difference was covering the entire bed with a row cover (fabric garden cloth, Remay, etc.). Isn't that amazing? So now I tell everyone (well, everyone who wants to know...) to cover their brassicas with a row cover for the first 2 months or so not only to keep bugs out, but also to spur growth, harvest, and have healthier plants!

You can always read more at the blog link below: