The Kale is still standing
- 1 minIn days gone by, this Kale has been a little more than a stick by the time July rolls around. There’s a system. We eat it over winter after letting it bounce back after the bugs have had their turn. This is its fifth season of providing food for the ‘estate’.
Kale is one of a handful of plants that specific bugs use for food and/or as a breeding ground. This is particularly true for cabbage whites. Where ever possible, we encourage these onto the property given that Dexter is trained to only hunt white butterflies. . . they’re the least rare regular visitor and the perfect game to hunt.
Last year’s record-breaking hot spell had a huge negative impact on the insect population. We noticed the decrease immediately at the time. Despite our best efforts to keep them cool, the garden has been a much less active place ever since. To give you a sense of scale( and only anecdotally), I used to see more cabbage whites in a couple of hours before the heatwave than I’ve seen for the entirety of 2023.
Hopefully, the bugs will have a good tail end of 2023 and bounce back for next year. I really need nature’s help with eating all this Kale.