Sprout harvesting
young codger
Posts: 522
My sprouts are ready to harvest, but I don`t want to waste them if at all possible. I have about a dozen plants all with sprouts on. I have just cut one plant and brought it in the house about ten minutes ago-the first one.(see photo)
The thing is, I Iive alone and the sprouts on this one plant will suffice for 2 meals. There were approx 40 edible size ones, and about 6 or 8 around marble size or smaller that I left on the plant-too small to peel.So, one plant per week (until I am sick if eating sprouts-or not as the case may be).
The outer leaves of the sprouts are already going a bit yellow/brown so not sure how much longer I can leave them in the ground. Will they last longer in the ground with all the frost (snow?) that will be heading our way, or best to get them in now and eat sprouts like they are going out of fashion?
Posts
You can leave sprouts in the ground as long as you want to during Winter as they are completely hardy. If fact many folk think they taste better once they have been exposed to a hard frost. They will hardly grow at all at this time of the year so you shouldn't get problems with the sprouts opening-up (aka 'blowing').
Leave them in the ground - they'll be fine, even if we get heavy snow. Don't cut the stalks, pick the sprouts off the stalks as you need them, starting with the bigger ones at the bottom and working up to the smaller ones (which will continue to grow a bit bigger in milder spells).
Pick by putting your thumb on top of the sprout and pushing downwards. Fingerless gloves are good in the cold and frosty weather.
And you can take the top clump of leaves out of the top and use them as you would spring greens or cabbage leaves. Delicious.
Very good looking sprouts by the way. Congratulations
That is good news for me then, I will pick them off as & when required.
I didn`t know that the leaves were edible. I`ll try some. Well, I will if I can find some that don`t look like the wings of a lancaster returning from Berlin.
Enjoy!
Not the big tough outside leaves but the more tender clump right at the top, a bit like a very loose-leaved cabbage.
Blimey six sprouts and a few kale leaves do me and the wife for a meal I couldn't eat half a stalks worth all on my own. I have taken to removing the lower leaves and any yellow ones from my plants as last year the sprouts got black mould on them, it seems to have worked.