Kohlrabi
This week Dirty Nails has been sowing kohlrabi. This unusual looking vegetable is a member of the cabbage family and is also known as turnip-rooted cabbage. It is a quick growing green veg which has a swollen stem base with leaves growing from bracts around the middle and a tuft on top. The leaves are discarded in the kitchen and the bulbous part eaten. It is delicious steamed, sautéd or eaten raw either grated or cut into thin slices.
Dirty Nails grows the Delikatess variety, and sows seeds thinly in a shallow drill ½ inch (1½ cm) deep. Shallow sowing is important, to allow the stem bases room to swell. When he sows more than one row, he spaces them a foot (30 cm) apart. As the seedlings grow and develop true leaves, Dirty Nails thins them to allow 6 inches (15 cm) between plants. Larger spacings can produce bigger crops, but kohlrabi is at its best when the bulbs are not much bigger than a golf ball. It copes with dry conditions better than most veg although Dirty Nails spares them whatever water he can because this makes them all the more tender.
He is now pulling kohlrabi sown in March and looking forward to a late summer harvest from this week’s sowing. A further line or two sown at the end of July should supply the kitchen into winter, and kohlrabi is hardy enough to stand in the ground until needed.
Natural History In The Garden: Wolf Spider
A compact spider which is commonly found scurrying around on bare earth or amongst low-growing plants such as speedwell is the wolf spider. This spider does not make a web. Instead, it catches its prey by running it into submission. Female wolf spiders carry their eggs around in a silken ball held close to their bodies and are easily recognisable by this habit. Several species of wolf spider even allow the young spiderlings to hitch a lift on their backs for a week or more after hatching.
Vegetable Snippets: Some Facts About Kohlrabi
This unusual looking brassica takes its name from the German kohl, meaning cabbage, and rabi, which means turnip. Scientifically known as Brassica oleracea va. caulo-rapa, it was developed by selective breeding as a food crop in northern Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. By the late 1700s, kohlrabi was being cultivated in Britain. Although not commonly consumed on these shores it is popular fare today in continental Europe.