Brassica oleracea is a single species that encompasses the vegetables we know as kale, collards, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi. It’s hard to believe that all these different foods are the exact same species. They are variations of the same plant, selected for different traits. This species encompasses many of my favorite foods. The crisp, tangy bite of fresh sauerkraut. The bright savory joy of kale salad. Hot smoky collards from the crock pot on a cold autumn morning. Colcannon with extra vegan butter. Raw broccoli florets dipped in hummus.

These plant foods are highly nutritious as well, garnering acclaim from nutritionists for their generous amounts of vitamins C and K, fiber, protein, anthocyanins, phytosterols, and antioxidants. Health benefits attributed to Brassica oleracea vegetables such as cabbage and kale include reducing inflammation, boosting the immune system, increasing iron absorption, improving digestion, reducing the risk of heart disease, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, better bone health, and reduced risk of cancer¹.

Brassica oleraca comes in so many different styles, flavors, and shapes because it has been selected for different qualities by different cultures around the world. It was an important food source for many of my ancestors. My German ancestors from my mother’s side would certainly have relied upon sauerkraut made from cabbage to maintain vitality through the winter months. My Scottish ancestors on my father’s side likely planted kailyard gardens near their homes to provide year-round access to kale and other fresh veggies. My Irish ancestors on both sides would have gathered around the table to enjoy warm colcannon, a hearty dish made of mashed potatoes and cabbage. These foods nourish me on so many levels, from body to soul.

A fall crop planted in July can yield through winter. If the plants are protected, they will thrive throughout the heat of summer. But May-July brings a predatory invasion. Cabbage worms, cabbage loopers, and other hungry herbivores descend upon the plants in droves. The leaves grow threadbare and sparse, leaving nothing behind but a delicate lace. I willingly share my plants with the bugs, but in this case, balance is elusive. The bugs take everything, and they forget to share with me. Don’t even get me started on the deer and the rabbits, who all enjoy these plants as much as I do.

In my early years of organic gardening, I would occasionally dust my plants with a naturally occurring soil bacteria called Bacilicus Thuringiensis, commonly called BT. It’s organic and natural, and it is highly effective at protecting cabbage family plants. It works because the predators of cabbage and kale are mostly all caterpillars, and BT is a caterpillar killer. Organic pesticides may create fewer problems for the environment than synthetic ones, but their eco-damage is still significant. BT is not targeted to any specific kind of caterpillar, so if a beneficial caterpillar accidentally ingests some of it, that caterpillar will die. Monarchs, swallowtails, and Luna moths beware. So a few years ago I resolved to give it up to protect the butterflies.

And yet, I need to eat. If I draw a hard line in my garden and refuse to grow anything that requires pesticide to survive, and then I purchase those same foods at the grocery store, nothing is gained. I’ve simply transferred the problem from my farm ecosystem to someone else’s, and added a hefty dose of gas-guzzling food miles on top of it. I doubt that the industrial growers, even the organic ones, are putting more care into protecting their local ecology than I am. Each year I try new methods with the goal of expanding my understanding of all the possible ways to grow delicious cole crops. I’ve tried out different companion plants, row covers, container cultures, and varied timing. This has been a deep study over several years, and it’s ongoing. Gardening (and life) is not really about having all the answers. It’s a constant evolution of trial and error; growth, death, and rebirth. It is never over, so we are always learning and adapting. If I wanted control over the insect population, that would be easy. I would simply spray all my plants with BT and be done with it. But what I seek is not control over the natural world, but harmony with it. Harmony is more complex, more nuanced, and much more difficult than control. I have made great strides on this quest, and I have learned and observed many interesting things along the way. I will share those findings with you now.

Companion Planting

Companion planting is an age-old technique that can help reduce the number of insect predators on many crops. If you interplant strongly fragrant herbs along with your particularly tasty veggies, the scent of the herbs hides your tasty crops, making them more difficult for insects to find. You can also include plants that increase the number of predatory insects in your garden, who will in turn help to reduce the population of herbivorous competitors. I’ve tried onions, fennel, and dill as companions to cole crops with modest success. These companions don’t provide total protection, but they do reduce the load a little. Recently, I inadvertently stumbled upon a lesser known companion plant, and the results were extremely promising. This summer, I noticed an almost total absence of insect damage on the cabbages growing next to Moldavian Balm (Dracocephalum moldavica). I intend to conduct a more focused trial with Moldavian Balm as a companion plant next summer. I can’t say for sure if the particular variety of cabbage was resistent (Filderkraut), or if the Moldavian Balm was strongly protective, or if it was a coincidence. It’s definitely worth further investigation.

You can get the most out of your companion planting strategy by combining it with weekly visual inspections of your kale, cabbage, or collards. When you find the hungry little caterpillars, you can dispatch them by dropping them into a bucket of soapy water. If that doesn’t work for you, you could instead combine this strategy with floating row covers.

**It’s especially important to note that if you are companion planting with your brassicas, you absolutely must not use any pesticides. No BT, nor anything else. Why? Many herbs, including our most common companion plants are insectary plants, bringing in important caterpillar species and predatory insects that protect our gardens. If you companion plant and then you apply any kind of pesticide, you will lure our precious allies to their doom.

Floating Row Covers

Floating row covers are mesh fabrics designed for use in the garden. The fabric is light enough to allow airflow and water penetration, but closed enough to prevent insects from passing through it. This method is very effective, especially if you surround the covered portion of your garden with fragrant herbs to further discourage insects from trying to get underneath the fabric. The downside is that the fabric only lasts one or two years, and most floating row covers are made of plastic. Plastic is very harmful to the environment in a number of different ways. Straws and six pack rings choke out wildlife, wrappers lodge in the bellies of birds causing them to starve to death, and microplastics are a serious threat to wellness for all living beings on this planet. I minimize my use of plastics whenever possible, but they are almost impossible to avoid entirely in this modern world. In the case of floating row covers, their benefit to the garden is significant. Since local food production creates a big positive impact and row covers help make that possible, this is one of the times when I feel the benefits outweigh the harm. However, I just recently learned that some companies are now manufacturing biodegradable floating row cover fabric, made from bioplastics and other material. These seem like a much more eco-friendly option, and I am very excited to try them next time I purchase garden fabric.

Container Culture and Physical Barriers

If deer are eating your plants, you will need to exclude them by other means. I like to create makeshift fencing by attaching any kind of scrap fencing material to garden stakes and surrounding the garden bed (not the whole garden). If you want to exclude deer from your entire garden, you need very strong, very tall, double wall fencing. It’s expensive and difficult and unsightly. However, excluding them from a narrow area is much simpler. Any sort of fencing 3-4 feet high loosely wrapped around a garden bed will do. They won’t try to jump into a 4′ area (the width of most garden beds), and the fencing will keep them from craning their neck down into the bed to snack. I find that deer aren’t very persistent in my garden, as long as I give them a wild area nearby full of their favorite weeds like wild lettuce, sunchokes, and mulberries. Deer also seem to avoid fennel, in my experience, so including more fennel around the perimeter of your garden may help reduce deer pressure. Deterrents are most effective if the deer have other options nearby.

Seasonal Timing

During the peak season for cabbage family insects, other crops are still growing well. Swiss Chard, strawberry spinach, red Aztec spinach, lambsquarters, endive, dandelion greens, chicory, violet greens, and more thrive during the hot part of the summer. So if you are not too particular about which greens fill your dinner table, you can skip the work of tending your kale during the bug season and switch to these other delicious greens. However, this strategy will not work for broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, or brussels sprouts, since they need the whole spring and summer to grow and produce their harvest.

Plant Density

Another strategy is to sow many seeds densely. When the rabbits, deer, and caterpillars come, they won’t get everything. As the plants grow, harvest selectively to gather baby greens as you thin out the planting and allow only the strongest plants to remain. If you have access to cheap seeds, this can be a fun and low-effort way to grow greens. It still doesn’t yield much during the summer unless you do something about the cabbageworms, but I love this technique for growing baby kale for salads in spring and fall.

BT Application With Harm Reduction Techniques

If you still feel like you must use BT to protect your plants, you can mitigate its impact by practicing these harm reduction techniques.

• Grow In Isolation. Normally I advocate biodiversity and interplanting, but if you’re going to use a pesticide the opposite is true. Isolate your brassica plants in their own section of the garden. Keep that area weeded, and don’t plant any herbs or insectary plants nearby.
• Minimize spray frequency. If you want to keep your plants bug-free, you need to apply BT every week. But you’ll still get a good harvest, albeit with a few bug holes, if you only apply once per month. Fewer applications will likely equate to reduced harm.
• Use the smallest possible sprayer. The closer you are to the plant when you spray, the less force is needed in the sprayer, and the less likely your spray is to travel to other plants where beneficial insects may be gathered.

Other Methods Worth Trying

There are many more companion plants and configurations that I have yet to try. Though I don’t want to use anything that kills insects in my garden, there are options for insect repellent sprays that I have yet to try. Many of these can be made at home using plants you can grow in the garden. If they work, that might be a wonderful method to bring the garden closer to balance. I recently learned about a modern translation of a medieval gardening text called Geoponika. I have ordered a copy and I look forward to learning new techniques from the old ways of gardening. I’m also very interested in biodynamic agriculture, and I wonder if some of the techniques from that method might be useful in this case. Every year in the garden brings an opportunity to try something new and gain wisdom through first-hand experience.

What techniques do you practice in your kailyard? Share in the comment section below. I would love to hear from you!

Sources

1. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/benefits-of-cabbage ↩︎

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