High Elevation Gardening Web Log "Blog"

This spring, when my kale started to go to seed, I cut off the florets. Rather then sticking the florets in the ground to root and start new kale plants, I decided to eat them. To my delight, they proved to be more delicious and succulent than my freshly picked broccoli. As I cut and enjoyed the kale florets, the plants quit flowering and sent out new tender, delicious leaves.

I had a healthy kale crop all summer and fall unlike the crop I planted the year before. Those plants were overcome by the grasshoppers and aphids. What did I do differently this year? I modified my hoop house to keep those pests out.

Gale-force spring winds wrecked havoc on the plastic cover of my hoop house causing the seams to separate and creating gaps for insects to enter the house. At the first sign of insects, I removed the damaged plastic from the top of the hoop house, but left the plastic intact around the base. I draped cheesecloth over the top of the hoops and secured it with clothespins. I purchased the cheesecloth at a local fabric store. Because cheesecloth comes in a 36 inch width, I had to sew two widths together. Seam binding over the seam made sewing the loose weave of cheesecloth easier.

This combination of plastic and cheesecloth not only kept the insects out, but protected my plants from wind and kept the soil from drying out. A few grasshopper nymphs managed to find their way into the hoop house but I quickly caught each one and released them outside to feast on the native plants that grow abundantly in the rest of my yard.

With my sprinkling can in hand, I could walk around the hoop house and water right through the cheesecloth. A hard rain created gaps in the weave of the cheesecloth, some big enough for grasshoppers to get through. I added another layer of cheesecloth over the first. Cheesecloth costs less than a dollar a yard.

Aphids are an infuriating pest on kale. My hoop house protected my plants from aphids; only one kale plant and several surrounding radishes were affected. I had let the radishes go to seed and they acted as trap plants for any aphids that managed to sneak into the hoop house. After I pulled up these radishes and the one infected kale plant and composted them, I only found a few aphids on a leaf or two when I harvested my kale and broccoli. These I could easily wash off. That was the extent of my aphid problem.

Will the kale last another winter? Only time will tell. I’ll keep you posted.

By Rebecca Snow
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868 ext. 17 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.