Late season garden bonus

At this time in the season I find myself scavenging for those little bits of veggies in the garden to add to our meals, especially the ones that wouldn't store well after picking, survive a light freeze, or there just isn't enough of any one bit to try and store -- veggies like rogue watercress, nasturtium leaves, tiny green tomatoes, tiny green beans, and tiny cucumbers. Our growing season is coming to an end. There are some veggies that will keep in the garden at their current size and stage, such as heads of cabbage, kale, beets, and turnips. I'm leaving them as in in the garden to harvest as we need them in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

What I wanted to show you today is the bonus cabbage leaves that we get a month or two after harvesting the original heads. So, I harvested the cabbage head from this plant in July. I didn't pull up the plant, but instead I allowed the base of the stem and root to stay in the garden. It received water from rainfall and when I watered other plants in this bed. 

From the base of the harvested main cabbage plant grow several (3 or 4) mini cabbage plants. If our growing season was long enough, I would actually have small heads of cabbage growing in another month. If I was able to get a second harvest of cabbage heads, I would remove all but one of these bunches of leaves, giving that head a good chance at developing into an additional head of cabbage.

The trick to getting regrowth on the stem is to leave a couple of large leaves at the base of the harvested plant. These leaves are often tough and scraggly-looking -- no problem choosing to leave those on the plant. 

As it is for me, with a shorter growing season, I leave all the developing bunches of leaves on the stem. Sometime in October I cut those bunches as needed then shred as I would mature heads, to use as cooked greens or in salads. 

Here you can see the color contrast between those dark baby clusters of leaves and shredded cabbage from the inner part of a mature head. As far as using in cooking, the new clusters are much like outer cabbage leaves of a mature head, a little bit tougher than the center of a head, but good for stuffing (if large enough) or shredded in cooking or salads.

I have a few of these clusters of baby cabbage leaves on other stems left to harvest. I'll use those leaves in salads over the next couple of weeks -- a late season cabbage bonus.