The Case for Growing Kohlrabi

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Friday, February 18, 2011 by Barbara Pleasant

Becoming a good vegetable gardener often means opening your mind and your garden to unfamiliar food crops. Such is the case with kohlrabi, a vegetable virtually unknown outside Northern Europe and Kashmir until the last few decades. A thoroughly modern vegetable, historians think that kohlrabi was developed in Northern Europe only 500 years ago, mostly likely by selecting from “marrow cabbage,” a type of cabbage with a thick heart. Dark brown to black kohlrabi seeds are indistinguishable from those of closely related broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprouts. While all of these vegetables can make great garden crops, growing kohlrabi is a wise choice because it’s so fast, easy and dependable. For beginning gardeners, kohlrabi is the first cabbage family crop you should try.

Kohlrabi is, in my opinion, one of the finest delicacies in the garden, worthy of planting two or three times each season. In the garden, kohlrabi sports a trim, upright growing habit that accommodates the presence of nearby plants – something the bigger brassicas cannot do. Growing kohlrabi and beets together works well because the two crops grow on a similar schedule and have similar moisture needs. You also can grow kohlrabi between rows of onions, lettuce, or radicchio, where its odd appearance becomes strikingly handsome.

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