Harvesting: Kohlrabi

Sunday, August 23, 2020

I discovered kohlrabi a few years ago when we had a CSA (we no longer enroll in a CSA, because the garden gives us plentyyyyyy of vegetables). Sort of like a mild cabbage flavor, with a nice crisp bite, I enjoy eating them raw like an apple.

These I believe to be purple & white early Vienna kohlrabi from etsy/ByTheMoonSeed as well as a freebie from Baker Creek Seeds. Despite having the title "early", due to nutrient issues in the new raised bed, they actually took quite a lot longer to grow this season. But we're findally there, lovely little 3-4 inch globes!

The kohlrabi here is actually a part of the plant's stem. You remove the leaves, peel the tough skin, and slice or chomp away. If you let them grow too big, they'll get woody, so the 3-4 inch range (on this variety) is pretty good timing for harvesting.

My CSA kohlrabi never came with very many leaves, but these from the garden have tremendous leaves! They can be used similar to kale or turnip greens. I sauteed them in a bit [too much] of bacon grease, and topped with a couple pieces of chopped bacon. The texture is sort of seaweed-esque. Maybe I should've cooked 'em longer!

Edit: Cutting the kohlrani leaves into thin ribbons appears to be the way to go here. The second attempt turned out much better:

There's about ~14 or so kohlrabi left in the garden bed shown below. We've had some serious growth in the past few weeks of the leafy greens bed. I just hope I can get some nice kohlrabi stems before the vining winter squash shade everything out!

August 15, 2020
The main pest for the kohlrabi so far has been flea beetles. Hence the "shotgunned" leaf-look. They're fairly harmless and since I'm not selling market produce, I'm not as picky about how the plants look. The produce may not be perfect, but at least I know it's pesticide-free!