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.
The leaves don't look very holey. Do you have problems with cabbage worms? I can't seem to defeat them no matter what I do.
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteCabbage moths/caterpillars are definitely an issue in my area, too. I can only grow overwintering broccoli here, as a spring to summer broccoli is too heavily infested. As for cabbage, one thing to consider is trying to work around the cabbage moth life cycle. You can try planting an early cabbage or shortest season variety (such as mini cabbages), starting under a cold frame when it is too cold to normally start cabbage, or planting out a short season cabbage seedling (started indoors) at a time of season when the moths begin to become less active, such as late August. You would still need to keep an eye on the plants, pick off/wash off with hose the caterpillars. But overall you'd have less of an issue with them than growing cabbage in the main season. A good variety of mini cabbage is Golden Cross. It is ready to harvest in 45 days. Also, skipping any Cole crops for a year would help disrupt the life cycle of the moth/caterpillar.
Wishing you luck with this.
I learned something new from you today! I had no idea that you could get regrowth on cabbage plants.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of your blog last week. We were on vacation, and one of the places where we stopped for a picnic lunch had apple trees (with lots of apples on the ground). My husband gathered the ones in better shape and made apple jelly out of them. :)
Hi Kris,
DeleteHow was your vacation? A picnic lunch in fall sounds lovely. And how very resourceful of your husband to collect the better looking fallen apples to make jelly! I bet that jelly is delicious, too. A nice little, free souvenir from your trip.
It frustrates me to see fallen fruit not being used by someone, because it's food that someone could put to use. My neighbor who gave us a bunch of Asian pears that hit the ground when a large branch of her tree came down said something similar. She says she can't stand to see food wasted. I see many nearby homes with apples on the ground (going to waste) beneath their trees. If I had time, I would offer to pick their trees for them, to save them the work and still give them the bounty.
Anyway, I hope you and your husband had a lovely vacation.