Now is the time to get in your cool mustards like cabbage, broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi.  They need this cool time to set their roots so they can face some of the warm weather ahead.

These three different plants in the mustard family, tuscan kale, savoy cabbage and kossack kohlrabi are all planted best as transplants.  Most can be found at garden centers right now and should be planted immediately for best culture.  Especially in the case of cabbage but also for broccoli, several lower leaves should be removed so that the plant can be buried deeper and can form a more massive root structure.  You’ll be surprised what a difference that will make to the superiority of the crop.

If your garden is new, you should be on the lookout for slugs and cutworms.  They are lying in wait for their evening meals just as you are planning for yours’.  To prevent the cutworms from wrapping their gargantuan razor-sharp mouths around the bottoms of your plants, simply place a barrier that will prevent them from doing so.  A strip of newspaper wrapped around a couple of times and sunk part way into the soil and left part way above the soil will do the trick.  By the time it decomposes, the stem will be too large for the worm to slice off.  The slugs can be deterred by a ring of diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the base of the plant.  This organic control is composed of fossilized shells of ancient diatoms and is equivalent to shredded glass.  Slugs locomote on their own mucilagenous trail and despise any prickly substance especially one that cuts them open and kills them.  You can bet they won’t come near your plants.  The substance is benign in every other way.  You could also use torpedo sand which is very sharp.  Or ground up, roasted egg shells.