Last night Random Number Generator told me that Kimberly of An At Home Daughter was our Pharmaca gift card winner! Congratulations Kimberly!
I just wanted to show you these broccoli plants. They’re romanesco broccoli, which are great fun to grow, we’ve done it in the past. This year we planted the seeds in either late January or early February and they are just now forming heads of broccoli! The plants are absolutely huge and at this point in the season are full of aphids. Scott asked a lady at Sonoma Mission Gardens about how to control them and her advice was to sprinkle a little gypsum onto the heads. She said, ‘you don’t like to eat food with sand in it, do you? Gypsum is like sand to aphids.’ So we’re going to give it a try and we’ll let you know.
Sprinkle them with Ladybugs!
Good luck with the gypsum. I love broccoli.
So that’s what those lush, huge plants are -I’ve been meaning to ask. I hope the gypsum works well and you get some tasty broccoli! I may need to try gypsum on some things around here, it seems like the lady bugs have moved on for the year. Those Mission Garden folks sure know their business, thanks for the tip!
Thank you so much!
Yay! I love your blog!
The problem is the hot weather. It’s a cool weather crop and gets stressed in the heat. Stressed plants can’t fight off pests. The result is likely to be bitter as well. Try starting broccoli seeds indoors now for transplantation in fall/winter.
We’ve had a banner year for aphids this year too, on the squash and pumpkins of all things! Fortunately, it’s a good year for ladybugs as well!
Sonoma Mission Gardens…one of my all time favorite nurseries, EVER! I probably have more plants from there than any other garden in Oregon, lol!
Generally, insects attack the weak, malnutritioned plants. If you fix the soil then you won’t have a problem with them. Gypsum contains high calicum and magnesum; which insects can not eat. Try feeding the soil with the gypsum and you will see things improve. Read Albrechts papers on the studies he did on soil; you’ll be amazed! Calcium is the key.