Well, duh!

[Karen_D]

I've had one of those "isn't it obvious"? moments that always leave me feeling a bit daft (shut up at the back!). Caterpillars are attacking my brassicas. Well, not all of them. They're leaving the red cabbages well alone. Of course, if you are bright green hanging around on something this colour is pretty suicidal.

Whether the butterflies and moths don't lay eggs on the red brassicas, the caterpillars realise they're in danger and leg it or the birds get to them quickly I don't know. What I do know is that you can also get red brussel sprouts and black kale which they'd also stand out like the proverbial sore thumb on.

I've got some black Tuscan kale to try next year but has anyone grown one of the red varieties of brussel sprouts who can tell me what they were like?

Wassail

Karen

[Annpan]

Ahaaa

Slugs seem to steer clear of red lettuce leaves too ... though they munched 60% of my desirees potatoes (still though, hardly disproves the theory... them being underground n'all)

Any other pest avoiding crops out there???

[ina]

Never even heard of red sprouts - must look into that! Not a lot of caterpillars around this year ( I think I saw one cabbage white all summer), but plenty of slugs again.

[Annpan]

Oh, I had hundreds of caterpillars this year... one made a home for itself inside my work gloves, I didn't realise until my finger squished it and it was wet

Of course how ever many caterpillars I had I had at least a hundred as many slugs

[red]

been overwhelmed with caterpillars on my brassicas this year. do find them on red cabbage too.. but are at least easier to notice.

best thing is to grow outside of caterpillar season, where you can - so the calabrese i raised early in the year was unscathed until after we had picked everything etc.

and things like PSB you just have to keep going through the onslaught until its all over, the veg comes in the winter.

dunno bought sprouts though.. this is the first year i have grown any, we have just been picking and squishing.. let us know how you get on with the red ones

[ina]

Either we've been lucky up here (or unlucky - hardly any butterflies), or it's just because I planted my brassicas far too late...

[Green Aura]

Red brussel sprouts - Red Bull. Tasty.
Red kale - Red Russian - absolutely gorgeous.
The organic catalogue does them both.

[Odsox]

Yes, I have grown red sprouts for a few years now and they are delicious. The variety I grow are Falstaff which mature after Christmas and are never bitter like some green ones.
As far as caterpillars, they were free of them until this year for some reason, but still not as badly infested as the green ones further up the garden.
The green ones I'm growing are Nelson, the replacement for Peer Gynt and they are really early ... I have been picking them since July.

[Millymollymandy]

I have just as many caterpillars on purple curly kale and black kale as on PSB and green kale. However those nice long straight green caterpillars sit on the upper leaf stem of the pc kale and are very easy to pick off! I don't like the other kind of caterpillar as they stink when I squidge them!

[Cheezy]

I've never seen so many catapillers, they've devistated by small plants for next year (purple sprout broc, cauliflower,cabbage), and riddled the autumn stuff, including by black kale, but they we're not the bright green ones, but dark spotted ones.

The red cabbages have indeed faired better.

[Thomzo]

I noticed some red brussels sprouts seeds in the Thompson and Morgan catalogue if you can't find them anywhere else.

Zoe

[Peggy Sue]

I got my purple brussels from the Real Seed catalogue on the web- they ahve faired very well against the caterpillars here