It is important to know that all these plants belong to the same family because families tend to use the same nutrients out the soil as each other and suffer from the same pests and diseases. As such, it is useful to not plant members of the same family into the same piece of soil year on year. So, although it may seem obvious not to grow cabbages where you grew cauliflowers last year, it may be less obvious that broccoli should not be planted in soil that grew rocket the previous year.
Being such a vast group, you are very likely to want to grow at least a few things from the brassica family, even if not the whole array. They are certainly useful plants to have in the kitchen and they are very nutritious. However, if you don't like a particular vegetable then there is no point growing it.
I make this point because so often I see advise suggesting that if you are new to vegetable growing then you should start by growing radishes because they are so easy to grow. Yes, it is very easy to grow radishes but I don't like radishes as they seem to mostly taste of ground with a hint of hot pepperiness. If I had started my vegetable growing career with radishes I might have decided that it wasn't worth bothering with if it was going to result in such horrible tasting produce!
So, general rule of thumb, if you know you don't like it, don't grow it. Having said that, however, I have discovered a love of some vegetables that I previously didn't like simply because when you eat them fresh and young, they have a flavour and texture so much better than anything shop bought.
Cabbage is not everyone's favourite vegetable for sure, especially if your memories of it are overcooked boiled portions as a child. However, it is worth remembering that cabbage is delicious in coleslaw, Chinese cabbage can be made into kimchi and red cabbage makes a fantastic pickle. It may seem old fashioned but with a bit of thought and the right variety, cabbage can be very trendy.
If none of that lot takes your fancy, then maybe you should look at the broccoli/cauliflower branch of the family. The big heads of broccoli you buy in the supermarkets are called "calebrese" when you grow them so look for this when buying seeds if this is the type you want to grow. Or you may prefer purple sprouting or tenderstem broccoli and these are particularly handy in the vegetable garden because they crop in March when there is very little to harvest. Cauliflower can be tricky to grow successfully, often not forming very big heads or having brown marks on the white curds. However, romanesco cauliflower is a good deal easier to grow and much more impressive looking in the kitchen.
If you love sprouts at Christmas then growing your own is something to really brag about when the family gathers around the table for the feast. They are fairly easy to grow, although you may find them smaller than the ones you can buy in the shops. Kale is also a very good winter vegetable and can be harvested over a long period of time. It is exceptionally nutritious too!
Lovers of Asian cuisine should consider growing pak choi and other asian leaves. Again they are straight forward to grow and some of the leaves, such as mizuna, can be grown into the winter.
Rocket is a very trendy vegetable these days and its peppery leaves work very well in salads or when paired with cheese.
Lovers of hearty winter stews should consider growing turnips and/or swede. They grow well through the winter and store well too so it is no wonder that people have survived off them throughout history.
Now is a good time to sow brassica seeds. They all have the same tiny black spherical seeds, which are a little fiddly but just big enough to pick up and sow into individual pots or modules. It is really important to label what you have sown as the young plants all look very similar so you won't be able to tell them apart until after you have accidentally planted them in the wrong place!
The young seedlings will need to be pricked out and potted on as they grow bigger. It is worth burying quite a bit of stem when you do this as this makes the plant less likely to be snapped.
By about June they should be big enough to plant out in the garden, although it is also fine to leave them inside for the time being, unless there are in low light conditions and getting a bit leggy. They can grow on a bit in pots and planted out once you have harvested some of your earlier crops and have freed up space.
It does seem like everything in the garden wants to eat brassica plants so it is important to take this into account as soon as you plant out in order to limit damage. Before you walk away from your freshly planted seedlings, make sure you have put some kind of protection over the plants - this could be individual cloches as a short-term measure, but ultimately, your bed of brassicas will need to have netting over the top of it. If you don't do this, then by the morning you will be left with just stems, with pigeons having eating the leaves. And if the pigeons don't eat your brassicas then the slugs surely will so use some kind of slug protection.
After a few weeks, cabbage white butterflies will start to take an interest in your brassic patch and they will lay their eggs on them. If you don't destroy the eggs then they will hatch into caterpillars and this will devastate your plants. You can get some very fine netting that will not allow the butterflies through so you can erect this from the start, otherwise it is a case of visual inspection and dispatching. The disadvantages of the fine netting is, firstly, it stops you getting in easily to weed so your plants might get swamped by weeds, and secondly, should there be any gaps in the netting, butterflies will get in but birds etc. that prey on them won't be able to.
Later in the season, some of your brassicas will get white fly, but as pests go, this is fairly minor and can just be washed off before eating. Flea beetle is also a problem and these tiny, hoppy creatures nibble pin-prick sized holes into the leaves of brassicas. This isn't generally a problem on vegetables where you don't eat the leaves, such as broccoli and cauliflower, but it can make rocket and pak choi particularly unpleasant to eat. You can spray against it or you may be forced to grow these inside.
This may sound like a daunting array of pests and problems and it can be frustrating when your beautiful plants get damaged. However, they are very resilient and usually grow back from pigeon and catarpillar attack. It is more desirable to avoid the damage though and this can be achieved with netting and vigilance. They are such an important range of vegetables and collectively have a cropping season from June to March so it is worth the effort.
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