Kohlrabi and Kale

My winter vegetable garden isn't quite flourishing like it did last year. Even last year's ice storm didn't halt the onslaught of veggies. I forced bags and bags of arugula onto unsuspecting friends, slipped chard pesto, which tasted strangely like mushroom pesto, onto my husband's pasta, and finally said no, mas to the kale and used it to jumpstart my compost pile. I had so many salad greens that I had a dinner party just to rid of them.

This year's garden is limping along. I was talking with several vegetable gardeners the other night, and all seemed to have the same problem. I know I planted a bit later than last year; early November as opposed to early October. I also direct seeded more vegetables into the garden bed, rather than growing them inside and transplanting them.

But I'm not sure why everyone else was having difficulties. One friend suggested it was because we had much more rain last winter season than this year. Could that really explain the huge difference? Or is it because we've had more freezes, albeit lighter ones without ice?

Nevertheless, I do have a few things getting close to harvest. The kohlrabi is ready, I think. I got these transplants as leftovers from a fall planting project. I've never eaten or grown kohlrabi before but thought it would be fun to try.




The question now is how to cook them. A friend said cook them as you would cook turnips. Well, I'm not sure I've ever cooked turnips either. So I guess I am off to find some recipes. In the meantime, they are awfully pretty to look at.


My kale is finally getting bigger enough to start harvesting. I prefer the dinosaur kale to this curly kale, but the dinosaur didn't make it.


We've been eating the Rocky Top salad mix from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds are a little while now. I like the mixture even though my husband is a little leary of it now. A couple of weeks ago I harvested some in the dark, with my trusty head lamp, threw the greens into the salad spinner, raised them, and tossed them for a quick salad. The mix has a variety of colors, and I was in a hurry so I maybe didn't scour the greens as carefully as I should have.

After my husband ate his second dried pecan leaf in his salad, he said he'd had enough.


Out of about 100 onion seeds planted, here is the only one that grew, the loneliest one. I did have one more, but my husband mistook it for a weed and pulled it. I've been a bit hesitant to take him up on his offers to help in the garden since then. Now that I think about it, maybe that was his plan.

Off to plant some more beet seeds.