#Brussel sprout plant how to#

We have lots more details on the best way to determine if you have this problem and how to deal with it if you do in our guide to root-knot nematodes. You can let your infected crop keep growing and hope for the best, but it might be best to pull infested plants and treat the soil to avoid spreading these pests throughout your whole garden. You can’t cure the problem without killing the plant. Once your sprouts are infested with root-knot nematodes, they’re toast. Sprout foliage may wilt or turn yellow, and the plants may be stunted. But one of the worst things about this pest is that you can’t tell you even have an infestation until it’s too late to do much about it.Ībove ground, the symptoms are a bit more vague in that they can resemble a number of other diseases. Root knot nematodes cause the roots of plants to become clubbed and malformed. These roundworms from the Meloidogyne genus can cause serious damage, in both home gardens and commercial farm operations. They’re microscopic and they live in the soil, attacking the roots of your sprouts, and a whole host of other veggies, as well. Root-knot nematodes seem more like a disease than a pest, to be honest. Just keep a close eye out for signs of disease.įor more details on how you can identify and prevent leaf miners, head on over to our guide. If you already have leaf miners in the garden, don’t worry about trying to get rid of them. Miner adults don’t lay eggs on plants in the spring. Your best bet, if you’ve dealt with these pests in the past, is to put floating row covers over your sprouts in the fall. The problem is that both the adults and the larvae can spread disease, and the damage they leave behind is an invitation for fungal and bacterial diseases.Īnyone who grows brassicas knows that fungal diseases are to be avoided at all costs. They do some cosmetic damage to the foliage, but they don’t harm the sprouts.

The miners themselves aren’t anything to worry about when it comes to growing brussels sprouts. Try alternating your treatments each year to improve effectiveness, and prevent the development of resistance. Neem oil or insecticidal soaps are also effective, but they need to be reapplied often to make direct contact with the worms. We talk a bit more about this beneficial bacteria below. kurstaki (Btk) is going to be your best friend. If you’re experiencing one of those intense years, Bacillus thuringiensis v. If you see them, pluck them off and drown them in soapy water. There are many “weeds” out there that may act as host plants, including Russian thistle, purslane, mullein, lamb’s-quarter, wild mustard, and pigweed. Then, one year it’s like an invading army of worms have breached your garden’s fortifications and taken over. It’s almost like they’re waiting for you to let your guard down. What makes them particularly irritating is that they tend to come in waves.įor a year or two you will hardly see any. The worms can burrow into the buds or heads and can skeletonize leaves. They can vary in appearance from solid to striped or spotted, in colors ranging from light yellow to nearly black. These are the beet armyworm ( Spodoptera exigua), the Bertha armyworm ( Mamestra configurata), and the Western yellow-striped armyworm ( S. ArmywormsĪrmyworms are related to cutworms, but the damage that they do is very different.īrussels sprouts may be attacked by three different types of these worms, which are the larvae of certain night-flying moths. They can be dealt with in the same way as any common aphid. The kinds of aphids that will attack brussels sprouts are known as Brevicoryne brassicae.

If they weaken your plant, it becomes susceptible to all kinds of other pests and diseases. On the downside, aphids can spread diseases, and they just generally suck because they reproduce quickly and drain your plants’ energy. Plus, aphids attract beneficial insects that will eat all kinds of even worse bugs. Honestly, they’re so common that I pretty much ignore them unless it starts to look like my garden is more aphid than plant (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration…). It’s a fact of life that if you garden, you WILL deal with aphids at some point. Here are 13 of the most common pests, and how to deal with them: 1. If insects are irritating your brussels sprouts, there’s no time to lose, so let’s not wait a minute more! Remove weeds and debris from the garden to deny pests alternate hosts or a place to hide. They don’t share many pests, so something that likes to nibble on new potatoes usually won’t be interested in nearby sprouts. Instead of planting 20 square feet of brussels sprouts, you could plant one next to something in a different family, such as a nightshade. This can also make it harder for predators to identify the plants they like to target. This involves putting plants from different families next to each other.

Brussel sprout plant