how long can cabbage PSB and cavelo nero stay in pots?

[Nora42]

Mine are in terracotta pots and in a cold frame they are looking healthy and no more leggy than some I spotted at home base today.
the end of my allotment taken on  in April (of the wettest year ever - groan)is being used by the mysterious and elusive potato man who I have never even seen - I can see my allotment from my bedroom window. His potatoes look very healthy and full of flower but I am longing for them to be gone.

My cold frame has earth in it and I was wondering should I leave my cabbage PSB and cavelo Nero in their pots for a while longer or plant them into the cold frame before they go into the ground?
any advise welcome.
Nora

[Nora42]

[green lily]

I think I'd leave where they are so long as they don't start looking hungry. There's no need to be in permanent quarters before September. Now I'd be looking at the safest place to keep them away from the cabbage whites that will be upon us in a week or so.

[Gordonmull]

In a week or so? I've already evicted one from inside my brassica netting. Needless to say it met with the Enforcer (electric fly swat).  >:(

They're around up my way, anyway.

[gwynleg]

I am hoping that they can stay for a while longer as I have quite a lot in pots and nowhere to put them yet.

Why is there a potato man on your plot?!

[Digeroo]

Surely when you took over your plot any crops in it become yours.  Are you paying for that bit?

No sign of cabbage white here yet, it is so windy that they will be in the next county before they realise.   I am struggling with slugs I don't need anything else.

[Digeroo]

Wrong!!!!    just seen a brimstone fluttering down the street.  Drat.

[Nora42]

thanks for the heads up everybody, I think I will leave them in the cold frame but move the bigger plants towards the back so that they are not touching the perspex.
the potato man leased the end of the allotment from the previous owner who sadly died this year so I am being charged £24 out of the £32 annual rent this year , not so bad and as soon as he is gone I will pop them into the ground after adding some compost as I read that they are all hungry crops, and I saw MD on GW do the same.

I have not seen any dreaded cabbage whites yet a few orange tips and on red admiral but i am hoping to rig up some sort of protection from them and the rather fat wood pigeons.
Nora.

[Digeroo]

I normally plant brassicas between the rows of potatoes, but actually they are enormous this year so there is no space.    Perhaps he will start to dig the earlies soon and release a bit of space.

[Alex133]

Nora - I'm doing same as you with sprouts  - keeping them in pots under fleece until able to plant out - they'll then go under butterfly netting - cheap and efficient against the main pests.