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Vegetable Gardening

brussel sprouts

15 years ago

Hi all first off let me thank all of you for being here and being so helpfull and nice

I just have a couple of questions one is my brussell sprouts are not looking real well i have 5 plants they are about 3 months old anyway i'm worried because one of them has semmed to have shrunk and is starting to i guess i would say shrivle up the other ones havn't seemed to get smaller but there leaves are also tryng to shrival up it has done alot of raining here in northen Illinois so i was wondering if maybe that has something to do with this problem or if there was something someone could tell me that would help me i sure don't want to lose my brussel sprouts!!! My next question is about my brocolli this is my first year trying this tasty vegi so my question is this i have 5 plants that are 3 months old they all look real healthy but one of them actually has a brocolli head on it and its been growing there for about 2 weeks i was wondering if this `means the other plants are not going to grow anything or if its just taking longer.............they were all planted at the same age.....sorry if this sounds like a stupid question maybe i'm just in too big of a hurry to see some progress from all this work. My last question is do you actually have to pollinate all your vegis by hand or bug for them to produce fruit i was under the impression that if you planted a cuke it would just produce cukes and if you planted watermelon it would produce watermelon are we saying then that our plants have to be a hermaphrodite or have a pollinater to produce? And once again thanx to all for your advice

Karl

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Comments (4)

farmerdilla
15 years ago
1. I don't know why your Brussels Sprout would shrivel while your broccoli plants were healthy. Usually such symptoms indicate cabbage root maggots or one of the root rots, but that affects broccoli as well.
2. Broccoli, especially the open pollinated cultivars, will head at different intervals. If the plants are large and healthy, you should be ok.
3. Only the cucurbits ( squash, cucumbers, melons, watermelons) need insect pollination. Most of the time there are enough insects, but with a limited number of plants, they don't always find the blossoms in time. Hand pollination is sometimes needed. All of these have separate male and female flowers on the same plant. There are cucumber and zucchini cultivars that produce without pollination. There are hybrids (seedless watermelons for example ) that require a pollenizer.
digdirt2
15 years ago
Examine your brussels closely for aphids. It sounds like you may have an aphid infestation on them. Also excessive moisture can cause root rot but as farmerdilla said, it should affect things besides the brussel sprouts if that is the cause.

Dave
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I have just sown my Brussel sprout seeds in peatless compost. They will be planted on into 3" pots when they are big enough to handle and then I will grow them on in the pots until they are about 6" tall. They will then be set out into the soil about 2' apart each way. I do not add any compost or fertiliser to the soil because this makes the buds "blow" or open out. Also during the year I tread around the base of the plants and then hoe them up so that they do not blow over during windy weather. Although they can be harvested from October to November where I live, I find they taste much better if you pick them after they have had a frost on them. They taste their best if you can prepare and cook them within an hour of picking. Here is a link that might be useful: Tony's allotment garden blog
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Im not sure, this is a first year for me on brussel's....Is the leaf stalks still in good shape from you cutting them off? The sprouts grow at the base of the leaf stems, so if there is no place for them to grow that might be a problem. BUT its still early, and theres plenty of time for them to grow new healthy leaves!!!! -cass
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I'm not sure about the timing of your planting. Cold temperatures strongly induce flowering in these plants. I'm not even sure that removal of the flower stalk could have prevented this process. Once this plant flowers heavily and goes to seed, it will no longer devote energy to bud (sprout) development. Seems like these plants should be planted in the late summer for fall harvest or in the early spring for summer harvest. Here is a link that might be useful:
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I live in New England zone 6 and just planted these 5 days ago. Been watering them. Many of them have turned this color. Is this a nutrient deficiency? A pest issue? Can these be saved?
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guitar7100
Original Author
15 years ago
I just wanted to add that i have straw/hay at the base of my brussel sprouts could this be causing a root rot problem? i also have it at the base of my brocolli with no apparent problems. uh oh today upon close inspection i found about 3 tiny little green worms on the under side of my brussel sprouts I'm thinking maybe these little critters are possibly my problem Can anyone tell me what the heck i got going on here?
guitar7100
Original Author
15 years ago
I'm sorry i didnt mean to say the worms are on the brussel sprouts themselves(dont have any actual sprouts yet) what i meant to say was the worms are on the under side of the big leaves of my brussel sprout plant. thanx

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