Most likely many of you gardeners have your garden spaces melted off and some are digging in the soil already. But then some of us still have piles of snow! If your beds are still covered in snow, it probably means that they do not get much light unless there is some other reason for deep snow there. Maybe you can do something about getting more light or maybe it is just good info for you to have as you grow your garden. I would also encourage you to observe how the excess water affects your site. Maybe you will need to try and change it or maybe enhance it and use the knowledge in your garden planning.
Fabric row covers are a pain! However, the few degrees they provide really does make a difference in the attitude your transplant has about being put into the cool soil early in the season. Often a gardener’s motivation for using row covers is root maggot protection. ProteckNet is a new product available now that is see-through and stretchy. It’s expensive but easier to use.
The general rule, probably based on outdated climate patterns, is that the flies are done laying their eggs here by early July, so that is when you can safely take off the row cover. Besides onions, a different root maggot fly, will commonly feed on any of the brassicas. They also love turnips and radishes.
I still use fabric to protect my onions and turnips, but for the larger brassica
plants that I put out as transplants, I use a different technique. Charlotte Olerud told me about this 15 years ago and I have not had root maggots in my broccoli or cauliflower since. As you put each transplant in the soil take a piece of quilt batting and wrap it directly around the stem. It must be touching the stem. Figure out a way to make it stay there. I use little rocks on top of a plastic cover. The plastic cover is probably overzealous but I really don’t want to lose my transplants. If you use cotton or wool batting, at the end of the season you can just leave it in the soil to decompose. The root maggot fly lays its eggs on or near the stem. The larvae/maggot crawls down to the roots to feed. If your plant looks healthy and one day you go out and it looks droopy for no good reason, likely you have root maggots eating the roots. Pull up the plant and you may find little white maggots about a quarter-inch long. Try to get them all out of your bed and dispose of that soil away from your garden. If you do not move that soil more than likely you will have root maggots in there the following year.
If the plant is big enough, with more roots, it can often survive an attack with just reduced production. You will have to decide if you want to let the plant live and leave the root maggots in the soil or pull it. It’s one of many hard decisions a gardener has to make! I have had mixed success waiting to plant fast growing turnips and radishes until mid-July to avoid the root maggot problem.
Mardell Gunn