I believe it’s time to show you an update of my vegetable garden again. Everything is growing vividly. It’s very rewarding to finally see everything grow. Every morning I smile at our homegrown corn that has grows 5 cm over night. We also have some first tomatos hanging around and the beets are finally setting ground. We have even eaten some peppers (next to the lettuce, radishes and watercress) and some berries. The first courgette flower – on a very small plant – appeared as well.
cabbages4

This past week though I’ve been pretty focused on the cabbages in the garden. I would love to be able to make my own sauerkraut again this year and it would be even better if this one was made from my own cabbages. Cabbages are difficult to grow though as I understand. There is a cabbage fly that can easily destroy all your crops. It’s such a pity, because these cabbages look so mighty strong. Anyway, it’s advised that you put insect nets around the cabbages and some collars around their stem.

So last week – far too late – I started making these collars from some old thick plastic mixed with fabric sheet I found. I made tons of them for my already big cabbages and for the new one that I placed more recently and for the ones that I still have in pots that need to be taken out next week. I didn’t place the collars earlier because I thought it would ruin the look of the garden and I couldn’t find anything suitable to re-use to make these collars. Apparently you can make them from just about anything that’s a bit thick and will keep in place and will be able to face rain showers and wind.

Now these guys are wearing their rubbers and the first thing Eduard said when he went into the vegetable garden was that the garden suddenly looks very industrial with these collars. Beeeeh that’s not what I was going for! Well, it’s a green-gardening-remedy, so sometimes looks are not everything. He also suggested that we test out half of the cabbages and see if this cabbage fly actually exists here on the mountain. Although good of an idea, I’m a bit afraid that if one cabbage gets the eggs of the flies, they will just move from one root to another underground and eventually ruin them all. So they all got rubbered down.

I’m still worried though, I probably should have placed them earlier. One of them looks a bit strange, though still also pretty lively. We’ll see, if something goes wrong, I always have a few extra ready to be placed in the garden. It would be a pain though, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed tightly that cabbage flies don’t like mountains.

cabbages51Are you wondering how to make these cabbage collars? It’s very simple, you cut a circle from some sturdy material, you cut the circle through halfway. When you reach the middle, you start cutting some small cuts in a circle shape. You do this so that the cabbage can grow during the period that the collar is still on, but at the same time it will keep the collar closed off against the egg laying flies during periods that the stem is still thin. Easy! Though not 100% effective, the insect nets are a better protection as said, but also much more expensive. So you have to do your own math. After you have placed them around the stem, you should press them on to the soil firmly so that there is no air between the collar and the cabbage. I didn’t do this properly everywhere as you can see on the picture. I will have to do some repair work this afternoon.