Growing Brussels Sprouts - Ep. 209

[00:00:00] Okay, so back on episode 200, the Ask Me Anything episode. Someone asked if I would do an episode on growing Brussels sprouts. How many times can I say episode in one sentence? I said no

[00:00:15] at the time because I hadn't yet successfully grown them, but I indicated that it may be soon because Brussels were absolutely having a moment in my garden this spring and it was looking good. Well, here we are and we are talking Brussels sprouts because I managed to

[00:00:31] successfully grow and harvest a summer crop from a spring planting and I have round two of seedlings started already for planting soon for a fall harvest. So today on Just Grow Something, we're talking Brussels sprouts. The background of the plant, how to grow it, what pests and

[00:00:49] disease, plague it and how to harvest and store. It's a full-blown crop specific episode that will hopefully demystify growing these teeny tiny cabbage look-alikes in your own garden. Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karin. I started gardening in a small corner of my suburban backyard and now 18 years

[00:01:07] later I've got a degree in horticulture and operate a 40-acre market farm. I believe there is power in food and that everyone should know how to grow at least a little bit of their own. On this podcast I share evidence-based techniques to help you plant, grow, harvest and

[00:01:21] store all your family's favorites. Consider me your friend in the garden. So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something. Thank you for joining me this week.

[00:01:41] If you are new here, I am your host Karin Velez. I am glad that you are here for all my junior gardeners. I am glad that you are listening alongside mom or dad or grandma or

[00:01:50] grandpa or whoever it is that is greasing your ear holes with my voice today. I am very glad that you guys are all here. If you are new to the podcast, I have all kinds of other resources

[00:02:02] over on my website, justgrowsomethingpodcast.com. You can find articles and you can sign up for the newsletter and all kinds of other stuff over there. I've also got a YouTube channel that feeds on to that website as well. So, Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts are a member of the

[00:02:22] Brassica family which means that they are very closely related to cabbage and broccoli and kale. They are small leafy green vegetables that look like miniature little cabbage that grow on stalks. They are either totally prized for the unique flavor that they give off

[00:02:45] or they are totally despised by people who were forced to eat them in maybe just a boiled manner or whatever and never really was treated to Brussels sprouts that were cooked the proper way. I know a lot of people that absolutely refuse to touch Brussels sprouts

[00:03:04] because they were just served boiled sprouts and trust me when I say I had zero desire to eat Brussels sprouts until somebody cooked them for me the proper way. So, this is not going

[00:03:15] to be a cooking show but I'm just telling you if you can find a really good recipe, go for it because you would be very, very surprised. If you like cabbage or anything

[00:03:25] sort of in that cabbage-y family, you will like Brussels sprouts. You just got to cook them the right way. Okay, Brussels sprouts are native to the Mediterranean and were cultivated as early

[00:03:37] as the 13th century. They gained their name from the city of Brussels which is why they are Brussels sprouts with an S Brussels sprouts not Brussels sprouts. It sort of blends together when we say

[00:03:50] it but that's what happens because that is where they became popular in the 16th century. They are believed to have been selectively bred from wild kale plants or wild cabbage plants which essentially is how we got all of our brassicas. Everything that we eat that's in the brassica

[00:04:12] family, kale and cabbage and cauliflower and broccoli and Brussels sprouts all kind of started in the same space. They were what we would view as being a wild kale. They weren't a head-developing type of a plant and different cultures kind of took that plant and cultivated them

[00:04:32] selecting for the characteristics that they preferred whether it was forming a head or if it was forming a flower or it was forming a stalk that had the little tiny heads on it,

[00:04:43] whatever it is or just remaining in a leafy form. So that's how we have all these different versions of our brassicas but they all kind of started with the same wild plant and actually the first

[00:04:55] written records of Brussels sprouts appear in the 16th century and of course historically they were not just used as a food source but they were also valued for their medicinal properties because they are very rich in vitamins and minerals so they were used to sort of boost

[00:05:10] the immune system and support people's overall health. Nutritionally, Brussels sprouts really are a sort of powerhouse. One half cup serving has 28 calories it's got less than you know a half a

[00:05:26] gram of fat about 16 milligrams of sodium five and a half grams of carbs just about two grams of protein and two grams of fiber which is very notable because that's about seven percent or so

[00:05:41] of our daily value that we're supposed to get in fiber every day and that's from a half cup serving so they are very rich in vitamins particularly vitamin K and vitamin C they are good source

[00:05:53] of manganese and potassium and folate this that fiber that dietary fiber they contain helps to promote digestive health and they also contain some very beneficial antioxidants compounds like campferol and flavonoids and polyphenols these are all known to be anti-inflammatory

[00:06:11] and antioxidant. Now of course if you have stomach sensitivities or IBS or anything that requires a low fiber diet then Brussels sprouts may not be the veggie for you they are in the cabbage family and those cruciferous vegetables are notorious for causing stomach upset and that is

[00:06:35] partly from that high fiber content so if you are new to Brussels sprouts let's just start your culinary journey with a little bit of caution. Now what I have found is that growing Brussels

[00:06:49] sprouts requires patient and some very specific care this year was not my first year attempting to grow Brussels sprouts I have planted them in the spring multiple times and I have attempted them in

[00:07:04] the fall a couple of times and neither of which did I have very good success so I was really excited this year to see that they were developing beautifully and realized at that point that

[00:07:17] I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them after they started to develop so we'll get into the harvesting techniques here in a little bit but what I have figured out is that the planting time

[00:07:29] definitely matters the moisture level definitely matters and the temperature right so the first thing that we want to do with Brussels sprouts is make sure that we're choosing the right variety something that suits your climate and your growing conditions. Shorter plants tend to

[00:07:49] mature earlier and tend to be more cold tolerant so if you are in a short season area this may be helpful for you in getting a crop to maturity or if you are in a much warmer southern climate

[00:08:05] here in the northern hemisphere with a very short window of cool weather that can also be very helpful so some of the really popular varieties are jade cross this one is fairly early maturing it is very disease resistant it is also fairly heat tolerant it matures in about

[00:08:23] 95 days from transplant there is long island improved this is a heirloom variety it is known for its very large sprouts it takes a bit longer it's around a 90 to 100 days maturity from transplant

[00:08:38] Diablo is one that is also very cold hardy and is supposed to produce very high yields but it takes the longest it's about 110 days to maturity so you really do need a long cool

[00:08:50] growing season for this one what I opted for was daegon and it's a mid-season variety so it's sort of you know in the middle of the number of days to maturity but it has a tendency

[00:09:05] to hold well in the field and to me this meant I could have something that I could plant in both the spring and in the summer for a fall harvest so here we are that's the variety that I'm growing

[00:09:17] and it tends to mature in about 100 days from transplant the reason that you know brussel sprouts are so temperamental is because they thrive in that cooler weather which is very typical for our brassicas and so that's why brussel sprouts are technically usually planted in the

[00:09:36] late summer for a fall harvest that's why they tend to be you know more of a plant that we see used as a side dish for like our fall and winter holidays right Thanksgiving and Christmas that

[00:09:48] sort of thing they require a very long growing season most of them are you know maybe the fastest ones I've seen are about 80 days all the way up to 120 days from transplanting to maturity

[00:10:01] now if you live in a warmer climate that doesn't get a whole bunch of super deep freezes over the winter time you can actually plant them in the late winter for an early spring

[00:10:15] harvest I planted in spring this year like I said and then I have started plants already and have those plants getting ready to go in probably here in the next week or so usually

[00:10:31] my fall brassicas are going in last week of July maybe the first week of August it all depends on what the temperatures are doing with the intention of having them ready to harvest

[00:10:41] for those you know fall maybe early winter time frame so when you are figuring out where to plant your brussels in the garden we're talking full sun exposure so at least six hours of direct sunlight

[00:10:56] per day again this can be broken up we've talked about this before just because you only get you know a few hours in the morning and then there's a break in the afternoon if you get a

[00:11:05] couple more hours in the evening then that counts as your six hours preferably eight I've seen with most of the brassicas they really do you prefer closer to that eight hours but if all you have is six hours

[00:11:17] it's fine they will get there they're just going to take longer to get to maturity you also want to make sure that the soil is well draining it does like the water it doesn't like standing in

[00:11:29] the water so rich and organic matter and then it's got a really wide ideal soil pH anything from 6.0 to 7.5 so if you have an area that's a little bit more alkaline they will grow just fine as a matter

[00:11:41] of fact the field that these are planted in this year actually is on the alkaline side I think I was sitting at about 7.2 the last time I checked and they have done absolutely beautifully so of course

[00:11:52] it's always a really good idea to incorporate compost or some well-wotted rotted manure just to improve that fertility and to help the drainage just like all the other brassicas

[00:12:02] they can be heavy feeders so if you need to boost your soil fertility you just want to do a sort of balanced fertilizer like a 10-10-10 that can be added at the beginning in order to be able to

[00:12:18] sort of boost that that soil fertility but keep in mind that they will benefit from a good amount of nitrogen just like our other brassicas so you could also add something like a blood meal or

[00:12:32] a fish emulsion that can be beneficial but per usual make sure you're doing a soil test and you're just not adding these things willy-nilly into your soil or into your raised containers

[00:12:44] now you can grow brussel sprouts in pots I mean of course you can grow them in your raised planters that's fine they will do just fine you want to make sure they're at least

[00:12:55] about a foot to 18 inches deep but you can actually do these like in a pot on your patio and these are actually very beneficial because if it's you're growing in a small space

[00:13:07] they grow vertically on their own just naturally and you can harvest off of them pretty continuously so you just want to make sure that you have a pot that is at least 12 to 14 inches in diameter

[00:13:18] again 12 to 18 inches deep because brussel sprouts do have a pretty substantial root system and they're going to need that space to grow and to be able to feed that green growth just make sure that the pot has you know significant drainage because we don't want those

[00:13:33] you know roots to get waterlogged and then just use a high quality potting soil something that's rich in organic matter make sure that it's well draining as usual I'm going to caution

[00:13:44] when you're doing containers do not use garden soil that can be too heavy it's going to get compacted into those containers it's going to be very difficult for those roots to move

[00:13:53] through the pot so make sure that you are using a potting mix if you can amend that potting mix with some compost or again some well rotted manure that's going to provide some of those essential nutrients it's always a good idea when you are growing in smaller containers

[00:14:09] like that to make sure that you have some sort of fertilizer or amendment on hand that you can feed those plants with throughout the season because in a smaller volume of soil they are going to use those nitrogen those nutrients faster than they would if they had

[00:14:26] access to more soil volume so just make sure that you are feeding them on a pretty steady basis just set yourself you know a good three or four week schedule and and just feed from there

[00:14:37] so if you're going to grow brussel sprouts from seed you are going to want to start them about six to eight weeks before your last expected frost in the spring or for a fall crop about four

[00:14:55] months before your first expected fall frost so yes if you're growing them in the fall this does mean that you are going to be transplanting these out in the heat of the summer so keeping

[00:15:07] those transplants cool with mulch and using good watering techniques is going to be important they will mature as the weather is cooling and so they will be ready for a late fall or an early winter harvest um they do like a warmer soil temperature around 70 to 75

[00:15:27] Fahrenheit or 21 to 24 Celsius for germination so if you can pop those little seeds about a quarter inch deep into your seed trays or your pots and then throw them onto a heat mat and keep

[00:15:38] the soil consistently moist they should germinate for you within just a few days you can do these directly sewn outside just like all of our plants that is possible you just are going to have

[00:15:49] to pay attention to when they're popping up to make sure that you're protecting them from things like cutworms or even birds that will come down and try to pick at the the little

[00:15:58] seedlings and then you make sure that you are thinning them properly if you're going to transplant them you want to wait to do this until the seedlings are about four to six inches tall and they

[00:16:08] have at least two sets of true leaves you want to space the plants about 18 to 24 inches apart and if you're doing them in rows you want those rows to be almost three inches three feet

[00:16:22] apart so you want to give them room to sort of expand out again these are growing up and they're going to be tall these stalks but then the leaves get fairly big these are abrasica so think about

[00:16:35] what cabbage leaves look like before they start curling in on themselves or what broccoli leaves look like before they start to form their heads same thing so you want to give them enough

[00:16:43] room to be able to expand out doesn't mean that you can't plant other things in between you know I like to have things interplanted but you're going to plant things that are faster

[00:16:52] maturing and a good thing to do is to plant some companions with these which are going to help with some of the insect pests and it's also going to fill up that space to kind of choke out any weeds

[00:17:05] give you a different harvestable crop um and and then be out of there before the Brussels sprouts truly need that entire space so good companions for Brussels are things like onions

[00:17:17] or garlic I have used sweetly some and calendula and basically any strong herbs that you can put in there I used to plant marigolds with all of my brassicas and I don't do that anymore and I will link to

[00:17:35] the episode where I talked about why marigolds are not a good idea but in short I I was doing that in order to keep the aphids and the whiteflies out but I have learned through various studies

[00:17:50] that marigolds actually attract leaf hoppers and spider mites and cabbage loopers and many different types of flea beetles which I don't really want in my brassicas so I stick to putting marigolds along the outer edges of the garden and using herbs and alliums and beneficial little

[00:18:10] flowers and stuff in between I also avoid mustard since it is in the same family and it sort of attracts the same pests but so most instances I am interplanting with green onions or scallions

[00:18:24] but I have also done fast growing lettuces and arugula as well and that way those leafy greens are mature and are harvested and out of the way by the time the Brussels sprouts or the

[00:18:36] cabbage or whatever is spreading its leaves so those uh those companion plants are always a really really good idea for a lot of reasons so one of the things that I figured out this season

[00:18:48] really made a huge difference in the growth of my Brussels sprouts was the consistent moisture we have had a really wet spring and it's continued on into the summertime we also had cooler temperatures for longer so even when we had the temperature spikes that

[00:19:09] often will cause my brassicas to bolt which it did some of my broccoli and my cauliflower did bolt the the the Brussels sprouts didn't do that and I think part of it was because they were saying so

[00:19:24] wet they were being watered so frequently from the rain I haven't had to water anything out there and of course it was a very very deep soaking so Brussels sprouts require consistent moisture especially during dry spells and normally in the spring by the time we hit maybe mid-June

[00:19:43] Mother Nature has turned the faucet off certainly by July it is bone dry and usually very very hot and it just hasn't done that this year so I think that is really one of the reasons why these

[00:19:55] Brussels have done so well which means to me number one mulching is going to help retain the soil moisture it's going to suppress those weeds it's going to help to regulate that soil temperature

[00:20:06] to keep them cooler so if you do anticipate it getting warmer early in the season then add a really good layer of mulch to help to mitigate that make sure you have a way to water

[00:20:17] them which is also going to cool the soil and is going to help them to continue to stay cool but maybe think about adjusting your planting dates a little bit this is one of the really good

[00:20:27] reasons why we keep a garden journal so we can track when it was that we planted and then look at the temperatures and the moisture conditions and all the other weather conditions as the season

[00:20:41] progressed and if we look at the pattern go okay well this year they did fabulously well and this year they did horribly what was the difference between the two if I can push that planting date

[00:20:53] just a little bit earlier maybe using row covers to protect from severe frost because we don't want to kill off our little seedlings out there but maybe that's going to give them a bit longer

[00:21:05] in the spring to be able to get to maturity before we really start to get to those hotter parts of the day so we said start your seeds six to eight weeks before that last expected frost date

[00:21:18] in the spring if you've been starting with the six week mark maybe it's time to move it to the eight week mark if you've been doing it at eight weeks maybe it's time to push it another week

[00:21:28] start them a little bit earlier and see if that works for you I will probably play around with this a little bit next year by going back and looking historically at what my seasons have

[00:21:38] looked like prior to this year and then making adjustments for the temperatures and there are online records that you can see if you have not kept these records for yourself and trust me I am

[00:21:48] not writing down the day time temperatures every single day in my garden journal I'm not that crazy but there are online resources that you can use to be able to look at the historical temperatures you know every year individually or what's the average for the last five years

[00:22:04] whatever and give yourself an idea of when those temperatures really start to spike consistently in your area and when the weather starts to dry out and you can make your adjustments

[00:22:14] accordingly the other thing that I think helped this year too is I was a little bit better about making sure that I amended my soil one more time prior to planting a lot of the time I'm just

[00:22:30] amending in the fall and allowing that to get worked into the soil over the winter and then immediately planting into things in the spring but this year with all of the beds that

[00:22:39] my brassicas were going into I added a little extra at the beginning of the season to make sure that there was plenty of fertility in there and those plants have all looked fabulous so

[00:22:53] that I think has also been a key so if you didn't do that or if you haven't added you know in the beginning of the season you can also just feed them with a balanced fertilizer

[00:23:04] about every four to six weeks during the growing season once the sprouts start to form you can go ahead and side dress with a little bit of that nitrogen that we talked about just to kind

[00:23:15] of support the development but you know from what I have seen just using a balanced amendment has worked just fine now when they start to get tall especially if you are growing a variety that is

[00:23:28] super tall you might need to add stakes to prevent the plants from toppling over they kind of start to look almost like palm trees to me I start taking the lower leaves off to help improve the air circulation plus that helps direct the plant's energy towards sprout development

[00:23:46] but you know that means at the top they're going to have all these tall leaves and they start to get a little top heavy if you're growing some of the taller ones so you might want to have

[00:23:54] some stakes on hand just to prevent them from flopping over on you. As we're going through the season what are the common pests and diseases that we are going to have to worry about aphids okay we've talked about aphids before they are those soft

[00:24:08] bodied insects that suck the sap from the plant they cause yellowing they cause distortion you can control these just by spraying them off with a hose if you have the ability to do that you

[00:24:19] can also use an insecticide insecticidal soap or a neem oil I tend to not worry about aphids too much until I really start to see a there's a really bad infestation that isn't being controlled

[00:24:32] or it is starting to really cause damage to the plants but nine times out of 10 in my garden I will see the aphids and then within about a week or so I will start to see ladybugs or ladybug

[00:24:45] larva and ladybug larva are voracious eaters of aphids and so I don't generally worry about it the other one at a 10 times usually what I'll see is I'll see aphids and then I will see ants

[00:24:58] and I will see that the ants are farming the aphids for the honeydew and that's a no-no we got to get those out of there so I just start spraying them down with with water or whatever just

[00:25:07] to knock them off and get them out of there another thing that you'll see problems with this cabbage worms just like any other brassica it's those green caterpillars that are going to chew holes in

[00:25:17] the leaves you're going to see the cabbage moths or the cabbage butterflies first and then you will see the the cabbage worms and the cabbage loopers if you can exclude those moths and butterflies to

[00:25:34] start with by using insect netting or row covers that will help which is exactly what I did I actually started out with row covers early on to help kind of keep the plants warm once we started to warm

[00:25:47] up a little bit in the spring I took those off and I covered them with insect netting and everything stayed covered completely with the insect netting basically until it started to get too

[00:25:58] tall now with the brussel sprouts they're starting to really push on the insect netting so I had to kind of move it or loosen it up and then I did start to see some of those moths and butterflies

[00:26:07] come in but the damage really hasn't been bad at all so I haven't had to use anything but you can use you know biological controls like like BT or again you can use insecticidal soaps that

[00:26:21] sort of thing the insect netting really is though a great way to help protect your all of your brassicas from any one of the you know insect pests that that you might face but usually for me it is absolutely

[00:26:34] those cabbage butterfly and the cabbage moths one thing I've not had to deal with but that is fairly common with brussel sprouts is cabbage root maggot so it's a white maggot larvae and

[00:26:47] it tunnels in and it feeds on the roots of the plant you won't even know what's happening you'll just start to see the plant begin to wilt early on with really no reason why I mean if they're very well

[00:26:59] watered and it continue to root you may have to check the roots of the plant to see if that's what's going on because eventually it's just going to kill off the plant flea beetles these

[00:27:10] are those small little jumping beetles that create teeny tiny little holes in the leaves again the row covers or insect netting is really good here and helps to keep those away some people

[00:27:21] have had success using diatomaceous earth around the base of their plants to help with flea beetles and then there's also harlequin bugs these are shield shaped so kind of similar to the shape of

[00:27:34] like a squash bug but they suck the plant juices and that causes wilting and it causes stunted growth and a lot of time you just need to hand pick these again those insect netting is

[00:27:45] going to help to prevent an initial infestation and allow those plants to get to maturity much more easily in terms of diseases you know the three things that are prevalent with most brassicas are the

[00:27:58] same things that affect brussel sprouts so downy mildew it's that fungal disease that causes yellow spots on the leaves with the fuzzy gray underside if you can improve the air circulation

[00:28:08] that helps which is why because it's been so rainy i have made sure to continue to pull the leaves off of the bottom of those plants to help improve that air circulation you can use fungicide sprays

[00:28:22] if you need to i have used first saturday lime to sprinkle on it to help to dry it out and adjust that that leaf ph the surface ph to help keep the downy mildew at bay black rot this is a

[00:28:34] bacterial disease that causes black lesions on the leaves and the stems there as far as i know really isn't any kind of a prevention for this it gets passed through the soil so if you've ever

[00:28:49] seen this in any of your brassicas you need to make sure that you're not planting brassicas in that same spot for about three years and then you can also choose disease resistant varieties

[00:28:58] that uh that you can grow to help prevent the spread of the black rot and then club root is also a soil borne disease this causes these swollen distorted roots a lot of the time club root happens

[00:29:14] because the soil ph is out of wax so you can stick if you can get your soil to stay between that six and seven point five then that'll help and then also you want to rotate your crops regularly

[00:29:24] okay so once you get your brussel sprouts to maturity then you have to figure out when to harvest them and this was the interesting part for me because i wasn't quite sure when i was supposed

[00:29:38] to start picking them and i think it's because i have seen the brussel sprouts off the stock i've seen them in a bag or whatever in the grocery store and then i have seen people

[00:29:50] cut the entire stock and sell them in that manner and i've never sort of seen the in between stage and so i sort of had to look up what it was i was supposed to be doing how i was supposed

[00:30:01] to be doing it when you were supposed to harvest them because when we're looking at cabbages full sized cabbages you generally wait to harvest them until they have started to fold their leaves

[00:30:13] and on themselves and they are nice and firm and then basically whatever size you want them at you can harvest them whenever they're ready for brussel sprouts they are ready to harvest when

[00:30:23] the sprouts just like those big cabbages are firm they are nice and green and they're about one to two inches in diameter there are two different ways to do this so you can just let them grow

[00:30:35] which is what i've done this spring and start harvesting from the bottom of the stock where the sprouts mature first and you just twist or cut the sprouts off of the stocks now

[00:30:47] once you have done this you will notice as you look up the stock that there are more teeny tiny sprouts that are farming so you can sort of have a continuous harvest of these so long as the plant

[00:30:59] continues to thrive happily in whatever the weather conditions are by leaving the plant in the ground and just continuing to harvest as the next set of sprouts are ready to harvest now if you

[00:31:13] want them to all mature at about the same time so that you can harvest the entire stock then this takes some forethought once the sprouts at the bottom begin to form you want to bend over

[00:31:27] the top of the stock so it kind of looks similar to what our onion plants look like when they reach maturity and the the top sort of flop over you're wanting to sort of pinch the top

[00:31:39] down of the plant so it stops the growth this is going to stop the top growth of the plant and it's going to force the energy into the maturing there's the sprouts that have already started

[00:31:52] to form and so they're going to grow more uniformly in rates and then once they're all at that one to two inch diameter you can cut the entire stock and bring it in or you can

[00:32:04] just harvest all the heads individually so this is likely the technique that I'm going to be using for the fall harvest since I'll want them to all be about the same size for holiday meals versus

[00:32:18] the spring crop that I've just continued to harvest from as they've come ready but I may also leave a few of them to continue to grow to see just how long I can continue to harvest

[00:32:30] from them as the weather gets colder and the day length gets shorter I mean everything is an experiment in the garden right the cool thing about brussel sprouts is just like our other brassicas after

[00:32:42] you get that first frost the flavor of the brussel sprouts is going to improve it's going to become sweeter those starches in the plants are converted to sugars in the cold so you can continue to

[00:32:54] harvest off of that plant if you don't choose to pinch that top and at least until the sprouts start to become soft or the plant finally succumbs to you know your weather if you have very cold weather

[00:33:08] and then once you have harvested them you can store your sprouts in the refrigerator in a perforated plastic bag for like three to four weeks they store very very well if you need to store them

[00:33:22] longer than that then you can freeze them you want to blanch them in boiling water for about three to five minutes and then plunge them into ice water to cool drain them and then just freeze them either

[00:33:33] in some sort of airtight container or in a freezer bag and frozen brussel sprouts can be stored in the freezer for up to a year that's brussel sprouts I really do think growing these is just

[00:33:51] like any other brassica it's all about the timing and the temperature and I think the soil moisture really does kind of kick in as a little bonus thing there so if you're somewhere

[00:34:04] where cool weather is the predominant season then you likely will have easy success with brussel sprouts if you're somewhere like me where cool weather is a total crapshoot it will absolutely be hit or

[00:34:16] miss I got lucky this year with the cooler temperatures for longer into the spring and the lovely rain that we've had but it taught me what I need to look for in the fall for growing these guys

[00:34:29] and for trying again next spring hopefully it helped you figure it out too until next time my gardening friends keep on cultivating that dream garden and we'll talk again soon thanks for listening to another episode of just grow something podcast for more information about

[00:34:45] today's topic and to find all the ways you can get in touch with me or support the show go to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com until next time my gardening friends keep learning and keep growing