How pandas helped me appreciate brassicas

21.08.2023 - 12:01 / theunconventionalgardener.com / guest

Today’s guest post is from Carl Legge.

Panda: …native to China. Eats shoots and leaves.

I’d like to encourage you to relax and allow your brassicas to attempt to go to seed. When you are relaxed, you reap the rewards and so will wildlife. If you read on, I’ll explain why and give you some recipes as a bonus.

I’m sure I’m not unusual in my previous habit of seeing a brassica plant go past its prime and thinking: “Right, you’re coming out, I’m not using good organic energy to help you make seeds!”

Well this year I was deliberately laissez-faire. I’d sown very late and some cabbages had not developed well. Like the pandas, it felt endangered and so started to produce flowers so it could propagate the next generation of cabbages. I let them do this and harvested the shoots & leaves and they were delicious. A generous cabbagey flavour, crisp and fresh.

So inspired, I let other brassicas ‘bolt’ where they were occupying space I did not immediately need. I then harvested the flowers, shoots, leaves and, in the case of radishes, the seed pods.

The upshot of all this was that we had a much wider selection of leaves and shoots to eat in the early spring than would otherwise have been the case. I also like to metaphorically paint with food when preparing it. The different coloured shoots and flowers were a real boon to my palette.

The other benefit is for the wildlife. At a time of year when nectar is in short supply, the flowers of the brassicas provide a good supply for the early flying insects.

Two things you need to look out for. The first is insects who love to be on the shoots, so wash if you need to. Second, as the season goes on the shoots can get a bit hard and bitter as the plant matures. Just have a check for taste and if the