Embattled Collards

Last year's exuberant collard greens were an unqualified success in the garden. A. was delighted and declared we will grow collards forevermore. Accordingly, he bought six collard starts in April and we planted them out.

Then it didn't rain. Like, at all. 

It's interesting that not all water is created equal for plants. Our garden plants will, grudgingly, survive when watered by a hose with well water, but they don't really thrive. They want rain water. I'm guessing this has something to do with the minerals in our well water? I don't know, but I do know that there are definitely some seeds that won't even germinate on well water (notably, root vegetables like carrots and beets), and that the garden doesn't grow well until it actually rains.

The collards were displeased by the well water and just kind of sulked there, waiting for rain.

Then it started to rain! Hooray! 

And then the harlequin beetles showed up, right on cue.

Behold, the destroyer.

The harlequin beetles arrive in great numbers at the beginning of June every year, and brassicas are their favorite plants to eat. They're not that hard to get rid of, it's just that there are so many of them. When the infestation is the worst, I use a bucket of soapy water and drop them in there to drown. Thereafter, I just inspect the plants whenever I'm out there and squish the ones I find.

Incidentally, if you ever have to hunt harlequin beetles, it's helpful to know their habits. When they sense you hovering, they'll scuttle to the underside of a leaf to hide. If you grab at them and miss, they'll drop to the ground, where they can be squished quite easily. They never fly, which is helpful.

Anyway.

The rains also came with two separate nasty hail storms, about a week apart, that were particularly detrimental to the big, spreading leaves of the collard plants.

The end result of all of this is, well, sad.

Not a picture of health.

However! The nice thing about collards greens is that they grow new leaves from the center, so even when they look like that, there is healthy new growth coming. 

Of course, I'm also starting to see the first small grasshoppers coming as well, which will be the next wave of attack on these hapless plants.

Will we ever actually eat any of these collard greens this year? Stay tuned to find out.