Allotments 4 All

A lot of people round our site have sprouts that instead of forming a nice tight ball have produced an open set of leaves.  I would welcome suggestions as to why. 

Normally blown ones develop when the soil around the roots is not 'compacted' and fertile enough..

I agree with goodlife, I stamp mine down as I weed and stake them when they start getting large before the Autumn winds.

Also I believe F1 varieties are less prone (just my opinion)

Light soil and/or planting them too shallowly is a common cause.

The only way I can get even half decent sprouts is to plant them on a path I have used the previous season. I know heavy clay is hard work but I cannot grow the sprouts or cauliflowers now that I used to

Mamy thanks I will pass on your suggestions.  I rather thought it was cheap seeds, last year my cheapo carters ones had a lot of blown ones.

Perhaps feeding them would be a good idea. 

QuoteI rather thought it was cheap seeds,

I think seed type has a bearing on the problem this is why I always use F1 brassica seeds on my lightish soil.

I usually have good results with calabrese,broccoli,sprouts and caulis and as I have mentioned many times in the past I don't firm my plants in.

I think we should try an A4A demo next year using non F1 and F1's and compacting / not compacting them in

This might put all our theories into perspective.

What I have noticed on our plots is; bearing in mind the soil type is the same on all the plots;

F1's generally fare better.

I grew sprouts from cheap seeds last year and was rather disappointed so chose F1 this year and so far very pleased with the results.  We have rather light gravelly soil so compacting tends to result in concrete. 

I had the same problem last year and found that I had planted them too close together so no circulating air. Leaves dropped off and sprouts blew. Made sure spacing was better this year and - fingers crossed - everything's going according to plan.

Oh dear mine are quite close, but so far looking ok  Most of mine of F1s this year except a purple one.  So I am eagerly awaiting the results.  I have had a few already and they were surprisingly tasty.

But one guy here has a whole row of good looking plants very well spaced and they have all blown already.  I just hope he might get a few better ones further up. 

Someone else has huge damage from aphids.  For me it is a bit of damage on a very small number of plants but theirs are a huge amount of damage on 90% of them including the sprouts which on mine are ok.  But there being looser have been attacked.