How many bugs can you find munching on this cabbage? I rarely grow cabbage for multiple reasons, but this spring I was gifted a flat of late Dutch seedlings and figured they could occupy some empty beds.
In an ideal world, we would have had perfectly biodiverse soil and would potentially have given these seedlings a supportive silica tea to help them fend off the cabbage looper, slugs and snails.
Instead I forgot about them. Brassicas don't do well with neglect. These heads will feed our compost piles. C'est la vie.
Even if I'd kept on top of these plants, these heads would have bought in at most $2-3 per square foot. This is because they're big, easily taking up 18 inches square, and they take about 110 days to mature. In the city, I'm paying a premium for land; I have to make each square foot pull it's weight. That's why I focus on fruits, greens and a select few roots - and why you'll probably always see me partnering with other farmers to offer cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, sweet potatoes - all things that need lots of space and lots of time.
