The Great Brussels Sprout Experiment: Results
Since the garden is shut down for the winter, the Brussels sprouts have been picked and the plants pulled out: The experiment is over. You can review the progress of this weird vegetable here and here. Over the weekend we dismantled the greenhouse tunnel that had been protecting them, and here is what we had:
On the bright side, these plants were in good shape — no signs at all of any frostbite. As members of the cabbage family they should be fairly hardy, and having them in the tunnel definitely worked to keep them alive.
As you can see by their size, though, not freezing isn't exactly the same as growing. There just wasn't enough warmth and sunlight in December to encourage those tiny sprouts to get any bigger. So the tunnel is a great place to store Brussels sprouts, but I think we'd need a heated greenhouse to ripen them further.
The solution to that issue is obviously to plant them earlier in the season. I’m thinking they need perhaps an extra month, which would mean planting them in the beginning of July. That sounds early for a cool-weather crop, though, so maybe next year I will divide them into two succession plantings: one at the beginning of July and one in the middle of July.
Anyway, here is our incredibly tiny harvest:
These are the ones that made it into the house — many were eaten on site as a snack. These are tasty, pea-sized sprouts. Although they are tiny enough to be tender and delicious raw, it's hardly worth the effort for such a small crop. We ate these in a salad — I'm not sure the kids even noticed they were in there. Still, we'll try again next year, armed with more knowledge about how to deal with these strange, green stalks.
On the bright side, these plants were in good shape — no signs at all of any frostbite. As members of the cabbage family they should be fairly hardy, and having them in the tunnel definitely worked to keep them alive.
As you can see by their size, though, not freezing isn't exactly the same as growing. There just wasn't enough warmth and sunlight in December to encourage those tiny sprouts to get any bigger. So the tunnel is a great place to store Brussels sprouts, but I think we'd need a heated greenhouse to ripen them further.
The solution to that issue is obviously to plant them earlier in the season. I’m thinking they need perhaps an extra month, which would mean planting them in the beginning of July. That sounds early for a cool-weather crop, though, so maybe next year I will divide them into two succession plantings: one at the beginning of July and one in the middle of July.
Anyway, here is our incredibly tiny harvest:
These are the ones that made it into the house — many were eaten on site as a snack. These are tasty, pea-sized sprouts. Although they are tiny enough to be tender and delicious raw, it's hardly worth the effort for such a small crop. We ate these in a salad — I'm not sure the kids even noticed they were in there. Still, we'll try again next year, armed with more knowledge about how to deal with these strange, green stalks.
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