Broccoli

[plantmarkParticipant]

Charles, For the second year my Broccoli crop has failed to deliver. I grew Parthenon this year, grew them on in 85cm pots and produced very healthy looking plants. Planted into my established Green Compost raised beds with a new dressing of 2″ and added Chicken manure pellets to the planting hole. Also sprayed with BT at planting time.

As you can see the plants are very poor and look to be affected by a rust of some sort?

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[charlesModerator]

Looks to me like sown/planted rather late Mark? Those leaves are affected by flea beetles then degrading around the insect damage. If heading now they were sown May?
My best dates are to sow them mid February or early March. Here we cropped nice heads in June, before caterpillars and flea beetles too much, and have that ground now growing radicchio for autumn harvest.

[plantmarkParticipant]

Thanks Charles, sown 3 March so they have been very slow to grow?

[charlesModerator]

Yikes that is slow, yet I would say our temperatures are similar.
We planted on 2nd April, small plants with fleece over. Perhaps that gets them going more quickly than setting out larger plants.

[plantmarkParticipant]

Its really disappointing, they don’t look very healthy, more grey than green. They are in full sun all day so hats not an issue. Perhaps the green compost is low in nutrients? Having said that some other crops look healthy, my sweetcorn, beans, lettuce, beetroot etc. Could it be that the PH of Chicken manure is not right for some crops?

[charlesModerator]

I think more that putting chicken manure pellets in a planting hole is not a good plan! Too strong for the roots and perhaps that slowed growth, I saw similar once in Ireland where WWOOFers had gotten carried away.
Stick to the usual practice, soil food on the surface.

[plantmarkParticipant]

Noted. Thanks Charles. I was trying to boost the Green Compost with the Chicken Manure Pellets as I will never again use Horse Manure after my 3 disasters. My first batch of garden compost is looking great and ready to go so I will use that next time. On the positive side at least the Broccoli will provide more material for the compost heap 😀

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