Your brassica seedlings come with free bugs. I’ve never seen a six-pack of broccoli starts at a nursery that don’t have a few holes in the leaves from caterpillars, or a collards plant without an aphid or ten.
This is not a big deal.
Nonetheless, before you plant it’s good to scan the leaves for these bugs and eliminate them so that the plants get a less interrupted start to life in your garden.
This week I planted some seedlings of cabbage, cauliflower, and kale that I bought at a local nursery. I scanned them and wiped off some caterpillars and aphids.
Then I planted and watered them in.
Nature will happen, and new bugs will eventually find the plants. That’s okay. Here are some posts for dealing with that:
“Controlling aphids on broccoli and cauliflower: an experiment with the kids”
“Green caterpillars on brassicas”
But cleaning the seedlings before planting can only help. This is what we’re aiming hoping for:
Lots more about growing brassicas:
“Growing broccoli and cauliflower in Southern California”
“Spacing and interplaning broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage”
“The economics of homegrown broccoli”
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