Spaceship or Vegetable?

Illustration by Wendy Hollender.

   Growing up on a farm, we basically raised just the common vegetables that most people would grow for harvest and canning. We had never grown "Kohlrabi", as a matter of fact until I married my wife, I had never even heard of it. Her step grandmother introduced me to it, by telling me about it. When I looked it up on line, I though that is the strangest looking thing I have ever seen. I thought maybe it was a alien spaceship, lol! It appears, it falls in the same family as cabbage!

When to sow outside: 4 to 6 weeks before average last frost or as soon as the soil can be worked. Also, in late summer for fall harvest.
When to start inside: 6 weeks before average last frost.

Harvesting: Smaller kohlrabi is the sweetest and most tender; harvest when 2" to 3" in diameter. Bulbs much bigger than the size of a tennis ball won’t be as tasty, and often have a pithy or woody flesh.

A little history lesson: "Kohlrabi" Means "Cabbage Turnip"

"Kohlrabi" is a German word adopted without change into our language, Kohl meaning cabbage and Rabi meaning turnip. This "cabbage" with a turnip-like enlargement of the stem above ground was apparently developed in northern Europe not long before the 16th century. The marrow cabbage from which it probably came is a cold-tender, non-heading plant with a thick succulent stem, while kohlrabi as we know it is a hardy vegetable, evidently developed in a cool climate.
The first description of kohlrabi was by a European botanist in 1554. By the end of the 16th century it was known in Germany, England, Italy, Spain, Tripoli, and the eastern Mediterranean. It is said to have been first grown on a field scale in Ireland in 1734, in England in 1837. In the United States, records of its use go back to 1806.
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 Plant in fertile soil, maintain adequate soil moisture and keep down weeds. Cabbage worms seem to be the biggest problem but we will see as they grow!  So if you haven't tried it or want to try something new this season here you go. If you have grown it and have tips for growing or cooking please share with us! God Bless!


 “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Philippians 2:5-8


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