Ok, so here’s a confession. In almost ten years of growing I’ve never managed to successfully grow that quintessential Christmas crop, the Brussels sprout. This has been somewhat irksome as I am a fan of sprouts and generally speaking, really in to the idea of vegetables that grow well over winter. But alas they are a slow growing crop, which means you have to be on the ball for a long period of time to grow them successfully. My sprouts this year were sown on April 13th (and planted out in the veg patch end May) which means that I have been tending to them on and off for 8 months now. That’s not ideal when you’ve the attention span of gnat like I do.
It doesn’t help of course that Brussels sprouts are a member of the brassica family, otherwise known as the “Pests and Diseases Love Us” family. In some years, the little seedlings have been munched by slugs shortly after being planted out in the garden. In other years I’ve managed to fend off the slugs long enough to get a decent plant going, only for the pesky cabbage white butterfly to lay its pesky eggs on the leaves, which turn in to pesky caterpillars that end up eating the whole pesky thing. That’s just pesky.
This year through a combination of grim determination and sheer good luck, I managed to get the plants in to the autumn in fine fettle and have been rewarded FINALLY with a decent crop of sprouts. Timing is everything – you want the plants to form nice firm sprouts by the time the first frosts hit, but not so early that they’ve become overly mature (and loose) by then. With the occasional frosts of the last month, their flavour has continued to improve to a pleasingly sweet and nutty flavour – unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before. They are an incredibly handsome crop in the garden – particularly when the yellowing leaves are removed to expose the sprouts along the stalks, therefore providing an ever present reminder of your awesomeness as a GIYer.
The big question is – with such an appetite for the lovely sprouts, will I have any left for Christmas dinner?
