They've been crowding out each other as well as squares in front and behind. I'll look them over and say 'just one more week - just one more week and I'll see if I'll keep them'. Well I've watched them sprout in Autumn ,grow slowly over the Winter, and sort of nearly bud in Spring - and the 'just one more weeks' have run out.
In the end 2 of the plants looked like they were doing well - although the picture kinda makes the developing sprouts look bigger than they were. I pulled a bunch and tasted them - really not big enough to put in the pot, so we sat and watched the kids in the pool and crunched on as many as we felt like before retiring them to the compost.
Was this a success or a fail? You could draw the obvious 'well you didn't get a pot of sprouts - so fail'. But I think that's a rather simplistic view to take. Did I get anything from this plant? Sure - I got a lot of knowledge. This isn't a 'glass is always half full' view - as by nature people say I'm rather pessimistic.. I prefer 'realistic' myself, but to each their own. Had I put these in a planter and had them fail, or fail as seedlings I would have said 'I didn't learn anything other than don't put them in a small planter' - so fail. As it is, I think I got much more:
The obvious: Brussels Sprouts require space. If not at least 2 feet apart they'll crowd each other out and the smaller ones won't produce.
They have a rather large root ball - bigger than I was expecting. Even given the space - having them in your square foot system probably isn't that great an idea - you'll have to be prepared to replace about 1/2 your soil when you pull each one. HOWEVER the root ball looks like it could be contained in a 5 gallon pot rather well. Seeing how you can plant them in Spring and Autumn, I already have several planted in what large pots I have available, and the replacements are already sprouted.
They winter VERY well here in the South, and as we had rather low temps (for here) in the high 20's to low 30's - and they were unphased - I expect this would carry on being true possibly up to South Carolina. Not only that, but hey also handle the hot pretty well too. Temps here in the upper 80's and not a worry. Very hardy.
See the picture above of the stalk in my hand. That's a LOT of sprouts... and more probably would have been on the way had I either been a little more mindful over the Winter with fertilizer, or left them to grow. With the larger ones munched on, I wouldn't be surprised to have found over a hundred on this stalk. So, a very 'efficient' plant to look into growing. 4 - 5 well grown plants, over both of it's growing seasons, could well be this families entire years supply of Sprouts taken care of.. scratch that one off the grocery list for all time.
So I know how many, where, when. I have good feel for how much fertilizer they'll need, water, how long they should last. How much they produce. Good, solid first-hand info. I have things I've grown by our initial 'success' definition for several years that I haven't worked that out for.
So I guess in summary:
Not every Success is successful, and not every fail is a failure.
Cheers!
Thanks for your insights into GA growing- I have yet to have any success with ANY brassicas in KS [and my b.s. did close to nothing here].
ReplyDeleteBrussels sprouts are a great winter plant up in NY- it's said that you can't harvest them before first frost, there. They are amazing delicacies after frost, something about it changes the flavor and there's nothing like a post-frost, oven-roasted, home-grown sprout.
I used the "palm tree" method for growing these [mine were in larger raised beds- 4' wide by 8' long by 12" deep][I had a large garden with 6 of those and space for berries, etc at the time]. That method entails removing the lowest leaves as the sprouts form at their base. As the growth moves up the stalk, the remaining topmost leaves cause the plant to resemble a palm tree. The sprouts get larger because there's nothing impeding their development.
I have never tried, but have often wondered whether this method might be conducive to planting soft lettuces [red leaf, boston, etc] in between the developing "palm trees", as their shallower roots wouldn't need the same soil/water as the "palms".
Last, but not least, b.s. plants are wonderful in the compost heap, although the stems require a bit of chopping first.
Thanks for the info. I'm planting just a bog standard Catskill variety, and they seem to sprout ok. I have a some already sprouted in one pot, and I'm hoping to soon transplant thin them so I end up with (hopefully) 4 going. This should put them on schedule to be harvested around Winter, and what passes as a first frost here.
DeleteI've not tried the palm tree method, but it makes sense - the plants usually drop those leaves eventually, and it would make space for them to grow.. I'll try it out on these, and if I get a full planting of them I'll do a head-to-head comparison so we can see exactly what happens.