Category Archives: Gardening

As with all vegetables, Brussels sprouts taste better grown at home.  These miniature cabbage looking sprouts are a delight for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners as well as a tasty side dish during winter months.

Pick a spot with plenty of sun, minimum of 8 hours each day.

Brussels sprouts require fertilizer, hummus-rich soil, so dig in plenty of well rotted compost in prior to sowing in the spring.   If your soil is acidic, sprinkle in agriculture lime, or if your soil is alkaline, add a small amount of sulfur.  Brussels sprouts prefer a pH of 6.5 – 7.5.

You can start sowing seed in mid-March to mid-April .  Sow thinly to a depth of 1/2″.  Once your little sprouts have reached 2-3″ tall, thin them to 2 to 2 1/2′  apart to allow them plenty of growing space.  As they grow you can draw the soil in around the base to give them support in the wind.  Compost can also be used to place around the plants rather than drawing soil up.  By using compost, it helps add nutrients as well as suppress weeds through the growing season.  Extra tall plants may need additional staking.   Keep the soil evenly moist, but never soggy.

Once Brussels sprouts have reached 6″ tall add some general fertilizer around the base of each plant.  Fertilizing every six weeks through the growing season.

Brussels sprouts general take 36 weeks from sowing.  So by patient!   Pick the buttons from the bottom of the stalk upward when they are about 1″, or the size of a cherry tomato.  They are sweeter after a frost.  The top leaves of the plant can also be cooked.

If you have problems with clubroot, lime your soil if it’s acidic.  Place collars around the base of each plant, or cover with insect netting to protect from cabbage root fly.  Cabbage white caterpillars will feed happily on leaves of Brussels sprouts, so protect early with lightweight row cover or spray with Bt once butterflies are present.

Great taste in the kitchen:

Brussels Sprouts with Cheese & Walnuts

Stem Brussels sprouts till just tender then place them in a grill pan.  Sprinkle cheese over the top and grill till cheese has melted.  Add chopped walnuts, and black pepper to taste.

This superb summer vegetable can be eaten cold, hot or even pickled.  Greens can be juiced, steamed or picked as baby greens and tossed into salads.  They come in some snazzy shapes and colors as well.  If you have never tried golden beets, I think you should give them a try!  We love them roasted!  Chioggia beets are beautiful and have pink and white rings.  Once cooked though, the colors bleed and become mostly one color.  We grow the Giant Yellow Eckendorf beet for our goats.  They love it and it makes a great feed for them.  There are plenty of choices to try from for variety.

We plant beets as early as March 1st and sow till the end of May, or even on cooler years through June.  Sow seeds every two weeks starting in March for longer harvest times.

Beets like rich soil that has a pH around 6.5.  Work in plenty of well-rotted compost into your garden beds and add rock phosphate natural rock dust fertilizer to help pump beets up.  If they are sluggish during the growing season, you can feed with a liquid fertilizer right on there foliage to stimulate healthy growth.

You can hasten the germination by placing your beet seeds into a sieve and running cold water over them for a few minutes.  Sow seeds 1″ apart, with 1/4″ of soil over them.  You can plant them in narrow rows or in wide patterns.  Once beets are big enough to thin, thin to about 3-4″ apart.  Many times I take the thinnings and transplant them to another spot in the garden.  I guess I just can’t let a good seedling to waste!  Otherwise, use the tender greens in tossed salads.  No waste here!

Keep weeds out by pulling carefully so you don’t disturb the roots.  Mulch through the growing season to help suppress weeds and keep soil moist and cool.  We use compost for mulch.  It feeds at the same time!

Harvesting is a matter of preference in my opinion, but it should be before they become woody.  Early harvesting of baby beets are are done at golf ball size and are the most tender.  Main crops are lifted when the beets reach the size of a tennis ball.

Purple of Sicily Cauliflower

Cauliflower can be challenging to grow in our area, but can be done easily with a few essential steps.

When cauliflower does not form a head, it could have been exposed to extreme cold temperatures, to little water, old transplants, to hot of temperatures or little sunlight.

Most people will plant cauliflower at the same time as cabbage and broccoli, but it is more sensitive to chilly conditions, so planting just a little later by two to three weeks is generally enough to get past the “danger” zone.  While cauliflower can withstand freezing temperatures, anything below 25 degrees seems to cause withering and damage to the plant. 

Plant cauliflower where it will get plenty of sunshine.  At least eight hours a day and in hotter climates, afternoon sun would be best.

Planting direct sow seed is easily done and ensures you get a plant that hasn’t set in its transplant pot to long.  We generally start seeds right into the ground around February 15th (zone 8) in well-amended and fertilized soil. Once seeds have germinated, we thin to one foot to 16′ apart.  If very cold or snowy weather moves in we cover with a frost blanket to protect our babies from and damage from extreme frost.  Be sure to give the frost blanket support so it does not crush or break the new little stems.

Transplants can work well as long as they are not old and root bound.  Older plants tend to be stressed and do not perform as well as actively growing seedlings.  Look for young and tender transplants.  While you certainly will need to be more careful, it will be well worth it!  Harden plants carefully by gradually increasing cold before transplanting out, especially if the transplants were purchase right out of a greenhouse.  Plant cauliflower transplant into well-amended soil, dig a hole slightly deeper than the plants exciting soil level, add a tablespoon of organic fertilizer, cover hole and slightly firm in plant.  Water.  Keep moist.

Watering is critical!  Cauliflower does not produce well, if at all in dry soil.  Keep moist from the time it goes into the ground, until you cut the head!

Blanching.  When you start to see a small head forming through the leaves it’s time to “blanch” your cauliflower.  Gather the outer leaves and fold over the to the center.  This generally breaks the vein a bit, but it still remains viable.  This would be my lazy gardner method!  Or you can tie up with a string or rubber band.  This prevents yellowing of the curd from sunlight.  The flavor is better, it looks beuatiful and the overall quality of the cauliflower head is better.

Harvest head while they still remain tight. There are so many fun types of cauliflower to grow and come in purple, green, yellow, and of course white.  Enjoy them all!

January!  It’s the time of year to start fresh.  Eat better, plan and make goals.  While planning your garden this year, make room for some of the veggies listed below to increase your intake of healthy ingredients easily.  This helps those who have kids that are persnickety about eating their veggies as well.

• Make your own dips with pureed vegetable and legumes to low-fat yogurt or Greek yogurt.  Add an addition kick by adding herbs and spices.
• Making a nutty cake?  Try adding grated pumpkin, carrot or zucchini.
• Using romaine lettuce or butterhead lettuce leaves instead of bread to make wraps and soft spring rolls.
• Top pizza with chopped vegetables like grilled peppers, thinly sliced squash, zucchini or eggplant.
• Add finely sliced or diced onions and tomatoes to toasted cheese sandwiches.
• Add peas, corn (GMO free) or carrots to any soup.  Puree if kids have a resistance to veggies.  This way they don’t know it’s there!
• Smaller slices, dices or pureeing change the flavor of many vegetables when adding to other ingredients.
• As an alternative to nuts, roast cooked chickpeas or kidney beans until crisp and east as a fat free snack.
• Include at least two vegetables in your lunchtime sandwich.

Include plenty of vegetables of different colors in your diet.  The phytochemical compounds that give vegetables their characteristic color provide significant health benefits.  My mother always said eat a rainbow of vegetables!

Grow some of these veggies in your garden this year and get a few more veggies in your diet plus sunshine and exercise!  Now that’s a New Years Resolution made easy!