Re: [gardeners] Cabbage varieties
Margaret Lauterbach (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Fri, 12 Jun 1998 08:51:55 -0600
>>I can provide decent soil, good light....but either I have a black thumb
>>when it comes to cabbage or I have yet to find a decent variety. Savoy
>>types were a complete bust. Early Jersey ditto. Stonehead is sitting like
>>a lump at present.
>>
>>Catharine/Atlanta, zone 7b
>>
Our biggest problem is figuring out when to plant
>them. Weather is a sure variable here, last winter was very mild, this
>winter may be another ice storm like January 1997. Another big problem is
>cabbage loopers, a world of them around here. That's the only time I run
>the bug light is when the loopers show up, kills zillions (a southern
>technical term meaning many many). Bt also helps as do the wasps, who only
>fly in the daytime so it's safe to run the zapper.
>
>Boiled down, in the south, particularly the hotter, more humid parts,
>growing cabbage is a crap shoot. Didn't help you a bit did it Catharine?
>Certainly made me feel better though. Anyone have a cigarette?
>
>George
>
You know you're getting old when you get off on cabbage. Or was it
Catharine's "bust" or "lump" that got to you? Ah, I'll bet it was the bug
zapper. Two heads out of six? All you have to do, George, is figure out
when Spring is and when Fall is, and plant just before either. Margaret,
whose cole crops are a disaster this year for the first time. Doggoned
ingrate quail! Stand out there and eat notches into baby seedling leaves,
then the seedling thinks it's been pruned, and pumps out more and more
stems. Sigh. Then the quail take dust baths, incidentally flipping my
rare heirloom bean seeds all over the place. Cigarette indeed, George!
Margaret