Best I know, my brassicas have never done that great because we tend to plant later in the year (Oct. 8th last year). It could also be that we're planting too thick, but it's certainly not a soil quality issue. Anyways, I was fired up to plant some brassicas last weekend, but not going to do it with it being so dry and no rain in the forecast. So, my question is...how late have you been able to plant brassicas and they do OK? Or, have you ever just skipped the brassicas if forced to plant too late? This is for the northern part of the state.

Brassica's will do good when planted in October, unless we have a serious cold snap. Planting too thick, can be an issue. What type are you planting? For good bulb growth, I like planting by mid September in Talladega county, but brassicas like rape that have no bulb, it doesn't matter. We have to have rain for anything to grow so we have to plant when we can. Dwarf Essex rape planted alone is 5-10lbs/acre. What has been your seeding rate?

I never plant earlier than OCT 1 by more than a few days. Brassicas have always done great. There's not going to be any growth in this dust anyway.

Around here theyll last all winter. If it gets really cold for a week or two, itll knock them down but when it warms up, they put back out and go on. You need to get your seed rate right. If they have enough space they will flourish and they will ne able to take the cold better. If you have a hard time getting your seed rate down, try some kind of medium to thin out the seeds. Figure out how many seeds you need on the space your planting and make sure you get it right.

Typically it's just rape that we throw in. Maybe a few radishes too, but not much. We're only doing a couple pounds per acre if I had to guess, but probably overseeding too much in general. I like the salad bar approach, but my guess is we end up with too much of each seed type. Don't get me wrong, the plots in general do well, but the brassicas don't do as well as I think they could. Maybe this year we'll do half of a plot in just brassicas so the density issue won't be as likely.

I picked up a bag of the WMS brassicas so that will have all sorts of bulbs and foliage only this year. The pics below are when I tried some of Eagle Seeds Broadside in the garden years ago. We've never been remotely close to that at the farm.

Holy mackerel, what kind of soil do you have?

Joe, consider planting half your plot in brassica and put your grains and clovers on the other half. Brassica's crave nitrogen. Rotate your brassica's to the other side of the plot next year. Years of planting them on the same ground can cause some disease issue's, I've read. Throw the nitrogen to them.

I can tell you what my fall garden has done so far. I have watered it about 3times since it has been planted. Collards are looking best but not as good as they should, turnips and kale look ok, some died before I watered first time, carrots came up and wilted, romaine lettuce came up and wilted, mustard came up and wilted. I planted and it came a good rain both of the next two days so I got good germination. There has been little rain since. I would say the 95° temps have been the hardest on it. Late in the day everything is laying on the ground but every morning its all standing up looking good again. If I hadnt watered those 3times I dont think I would have a fall garden at all, it would have all burnt up.

I talked to a guy near me over here who planted some "early" plots in late August, and he said they're all dead. No rain at all.

Crappy soil that was fertilized like crazy back then. Easy to do with 1000 square feet for a garden. I've gone to no-till for the garden the last couple year so the soil should be much better now, but no rain...

Joe, you aught to try some gin trash on that back yard garden spot. From what ive seen, it works miracles. Saw some of the biggest tomato plants and biggest tomatoes ive ever seen at a customers house this summer. She said all she uses is gin trash, no fertalizer at all. You can get it at the cotton gin for $35/dumptruck load. Im gona put a couple loads on my little garden spot where I grow tomatoes and a couple other thimgs, its probably 12-1500sf. I was amazed how that ladies stuff looked, made me jealous.

Do you use exclusion cages? I bet the deer are eating them, before they can grow much of a bulb