Growing Kohlrabi (& Why It May Change Your Life)

Without further ado, I would love to introduce you to my dear friend kolrabi. Kolrabi is this wild German word that means turnip cabbage and it indeed is kind of a cabbage-y turnip in that it's the same genus species as cabbage, Brassica oleraceae, so it shares a wild ancestor with brussel sprouts and broccoli and all kinds of marvelous things. But our ancestors for millennia have selected it instead of having these lovely little brussel sprouts or these big cauliflower florets, we've been selecting it for a lateral meristem that swells into this massive juicy succulent thing. And here's how I think of kolrabi, it's so sweet, it's so juicy, it has this very mild Brassica flavor, so I think of it as everything that I love about apples and jicama and broccoli stems, super sweet right out of the garden all at once. And there's lots of different varieties, you'll most often see them in this lovely green, this is our lanrow by the way, it is a classic smaller size kolrabi, so lanrow, this is about as big as you would hope to harvest her. The larger varieties like super schmilz and cossacks, they get much larger and without getting pithy, but once they get to be this size you're really starting to, they're starting to crack in the woody side. But once they're this size or smaller, even at this stage we start to harvest them and they are just so sweet and so lovely friends. So another thing to keep in mind about kolrabi, it is imminently edible, I have mentioned, but I haven't told you exactly how. And I love just simply to eat it raw, I love to chop it up into sticks and eat it, whether it's just with salt and lemon squeezed on top or dipped in hummus, but I also love it grated in slaws. I love it in soups and stews roasted, it's a dream. And I love it in cream-based soups, lots of different ways to enjoy kolrabi friends. I love it especially with lots of mustard because that bright brassica flavor is so complemented by mustard and other acids like lemon juice. So friends, enjoy growing kolrabi, it's so easy to grow. We often direct seed it as you can also transplant it, it's not nearly as picky as other root vegetables because even though it looks like a root vegetable, it in fact is not a root vegetable. And spring and fall are the classic seasons here in Zone 5 to be enjoying it and growing it. But you can see this one we planted in spring, it is now July and look at this marvelous creature. You can enjoy kolrabi in a wide window throughout the seasons friends, and I hope that you do.