Brussels Sprouts Difficulties

At this time of year, many outdoor growers are winding down their plots. It’s time to clear away tender plants before the first frost, gather in the last of the harvest and make sure the hardy brassicas that can survive the winter weather are protected against marauding pigeons.

Some gardeners breathe a sigh of relief when the first frosts of winter arrive – the hard work of the season is over and they can tidy the garden up and leave it dormant until spring. There’s plenty to do inside, studying the seed catalogues and planning, in the dry and the warm. If, like me, your green fingers get itchy and want to keep on gardening then your vegetable plot may already be filled with wintry crops – Brussels sprouts for Christmas, winter cabbage and kale, leeks and over-wintering onions. They’ve all been in the ground for a while now, though, and you may be casting around for something else to plant. Planted the garlic? Sown the broad beans? Then it’s time to think about Jerusalem artichokes.

Sprouting broccoli is not the usual sort of broccoli you’d find in the supermarket. Those big heads of tight green florets are heading broccoli, also known as calabrese. Sprouting broccoli is a much more majestic plant, taller and hardier and giving a generous harvest of small florets in early spring, when the kitchen garden struggles to put food on your table.

Last Sunday I wanted to buy some wooden planters for the vines, so that they can clamber up the arbour, so we set off on a bit of a garden centre ‘crawl’ to find what we wanted – for them to fix to the arbour they had to be within a certain size range. And to fit within the budget they had to be within a certain price range…

The new grapevines I ordered (from Victoriana Nursery Gardens) arrived last week. The planters for them should arrive this week…. I want the vines to grow over the arbour, and we’ve chosen a pair of wooden planters that can be fixed to the arbour, so that the whole lot can be moved together should the need ever arise. The vines are going to be long-term residents of the garden, after all. It won’t be too long before I can enjoy cooking with vine leaves, although a decent crop of seedless dessert grapes might take a little longer.

When you think about Christmas plants you probably think about holly and ivy, possibly Christmas trees and poinsetties, and maybe even Brussels sprouts and parsnips. But I bet you don’t think about radishes. And yet, the humble radish (Raphanus sativus) plays an important role in the Christmas festivities in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Trevor George, King’s College London

Sage is a hardy perennial grown for centuries for use medicinally and as a culinary herb. Over the course of those centuries, organic gardens have found that companion plants for sage encourage the vigor of the herb as well as the sage companion plants. What grows well with sage? There are a number of companion plants for sage. Continue reading to learn about companion planting with sage.

I have found a new commitment to growing and eating Brussels sprouts. From 3 or 4 plants last year I ate several hearty meals including a socially distanced Christmas (not because of any sprout side effects).

Garden Sprouts is a program I run at the South Carolina Botanical Garden that is designed for preschoolers and caregivers. This class takes place once a week for three months every spring and fall. The goal is to share age-appropriate nature-based activities with children, who are mostly three to five years old, but sometimes younger or older. Over time I have learned the caregivers also learn things they never knew, enjoy the activities immensely, and are able to connect more deeply to the natural world through this program. The structure of this hour-long program is three-fold, we begin inside with a book related to the theme of the day, a walk or outdoor activity, and finally a craft. In this blog, I would like to share some of the books, outdoor activities, and crafts we have done in this class.

A recipe with 3-ingredients that is super easy and full of fall flavors.

Though I cannot see without a hand magnifying lens if they have the requisite tiny markings, I’m betting from its overall appearance and velvety surface that this is the larval stage of the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, because I have also seen its adult stage flying around, a smallish butterfly with a couple of smudgy spots on each white wing.This article from Missouri Botanical Garden is extremely detailed on my latest visitor, also known as the imported cabbage worm, and other pests of cabbage relatives, including cabbage looper and the caterpillar of the diamondback moth. The latter two caterpillars are smooth, not velvety, among other clues to differentiating among the three.As with all caterpillars, these can be controlle