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Originally ripened for large-scale vegetable farming, brassica plugs are hardy plants that can withstand a wide variety of conditions. Whether you opt for cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli or leafy greens, here’s what to do with your vegetable plug plants to ensure you get a bumper harvest. Grown from seed? Follow the same instructions when you come to plant your seedlings out.
As soon as your brassica plug plants arrive, unshut the packaging and make sure the roots are nice and moist. Water them if they’re not. To requite your plugs the weightier endangerment of thriving, it’s very important to get them into soil as soon as possible.
Suttons provides several different sizes of plug plants. Jumbo plugs and super plugs are often large unbearable to be planted straight out into your veg patch or allotment. However, if you go for our smaller value plugs or posti-plugs, you may need to grow them on a little surpassing putting them out into their final positions.
Choose a sunny or part-shaded position in the garden. The soil should be weed free, well-worked and moist. Prior to planting, wield a unstipulated purpose fertiliser like Growmore.
Use a trowel to part the soil, creating a shallow furrow into which you can plant your plugs. Firm in the young plants so that the top of the module plug is just unelevated soil level – this helps prevent the roots from drying out.
Water well and regularly, ensuring the plants have sufficient moisture at all times, particularly during warm spells.
Position your sprouting broccoli plants at 60cm (24″) intervals in rows 60cm (24″) apart. The plants will ultimately reach virtually 3ft in height so it’s a good idea to earth up slightly to provide plenty of support as they mature. Crops grown on exposed sites may goody from staking versus ‘wind rock’.
From early winter, harvest the young flower shoots from your sprouting broccoli plants as they appear. Pick whilst young and tender when the buds are tight. Regular picking encourages a steady supply of florets which should protract for several weeks.
If you buy jumbo plugs, you can plant your cabbage plants straight out at 30cm (12”) intervals leaving the same loftiness between rows. Savoy cabbages need a little increasingly space – plant these at 40-50cm (16-20″) intervals in rows 40-50cm (16-20″) apart. As the plants grow, yank earth up virtually the wiring of each stem and firm to prevent ‘wind rock’ and modernize the plants’ stability.
Plants will heart-up through the spring but, if they’re pointed cabbage varieties, they can moreover be cut older surpassing hearts towards and used for leafy greens. If it’s winter cabbage you’re looking for, our Savoy cabbages provide compact, round, visionless untried heads from October through to December.
To overwinter your cauliflowers, pot your cauliflower plugs on surpassing planting them out at 60cm (24″) intervals in rows 60cm (24″) apart. Expect large white curds to form from April onwards.
For autumn/winter cauliflower plants including the architectural Romanesco varieties, plant in the same way but expect the curds to form from October through to December.
Careful monitoring of your cauliflowers is required – they don’t do well when under-watered or waterlogged. Alimony the soil moist, squint out for invading caterpillars, and protect developing curds from the sun by folding the leaves over them.
Plant pak choi plugs or your homegrown seedlings at 30cm (12″) intervals in rows the same loftiness apart. Pak choi has short roots so make sure you alimony on top of your watering. Quick growing, it should be ready to harvest 45 – 60 days without planting.
Pak choi leaves are soft and succulent, with crunchy white or untried stalks. The whole plant is edible, and the slight mustard flavour makes a delightful wing to stir-fries, soups, noodle and meat dishes. The young leaves are moreover unconfined for subtracting to salads.
Excellent winter hardiness makes kale a useful winter/spring vegetable at a time when fresh garden produce is scarce. Providing you with delicious, highly nutritious, “leafy” pickings, kale requires little superintendency untied from watering, should this be necessary. Planting a range of kales will alimony you well-supplied with tasty leaves through most of the year and expressly during the winter when kale comes into its own – a frost helps to enhance its unvigilant flavour.
Grow Brussels sprout plants tightly in firm, rich fertile, well tuckered soil – a site that has previously grown beans or peas is ideal. Position your plugs 60cm (24”) untied and water thoroughly without planting.
Try Brussels Sprout ‘Crispus’ for a profusion of visionless untried buttons ready from September through to Christmas. You’ll need to pot your plugs on surpassing they’re ready to plant out, but you can plane try growing them in containers if space is at a premium.
Brassica plug plants offer a shortcut to thriving leafy veg which is both nutritious and delicious. Get a throne start on the growing season by browsing our wide range of vegetable plants for gardens and allotments.
Lead image: Cabbage Plants ‘Savoy Continuity Collection’ from Suttons
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