Content
- Kohlrabi - a great tuber: tasty and spicy with brisk growth
- Interesting facts about the tuber vegetables
- Soil preparation: All-round feel-good package for your Kohlrabi in the garden bed
- Kohlrabi optics and weight
- Blue and white kohlrabi varieties
- Prefer kohlrabi, sowing and planting times
- Prefer kohlrabi
- Sow in the field
- Plant kohlrabi
- The thing with the neighborhood
- Maintain and harvest kohlrabi
- Kohlrabi harvest and storage
- Tips & Tricks
Kohlrabi - a great tuber: tasty and spicy with brisk growth
Have you ever tried a freshly harvested kohlrabi? The taste of this vegetable is beguiling juicy-fresh and spicy and the fiber, vitamins and minerals that support your health. Good news: growing kohlrabi is easy. Even a beginner.
Interesting facts about the tuber vegetables
The origin of kohlrabi lies in the dark. The first crops were in Central Asia and the Mediterranean. Only in the 16th century the Kohlrabi appeared in European herbal books. Since the 19th century, it is grown especially in German-speaking countries and is considered typical German vegetables.
Kohlrabi not only tastes good, the vegetables are low in calories and rich in healthy ingredients: Kohlrabi contains a lot of vitamin C and in the leaves carotenoids, which are converted from the body to vitamin A. In addition, kohlrabi is rich in magnesium, potassium, calcium and iron. The blue varieties contain anthocyanins - these substances reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Soil preparation: All-round feel-good package for your Kohlrabi in the garden bed
Although kohlrabi does not have very high demands on the soil condition, you should prepare the bed in autumn for the cultivation of delicious tubers. Mix the soil with plenty of mature compost and if you can get cow or horse manure, work it. The bed then has to rest over the winter before your kohlrabi plants take possession of it. The nutrient content of the soil produced in this way is optimal for the medium-draining Kohlrabi.
Kohlrabi optics and weight
Kohlrabi is actually a biennial plant. In the first year he trains a thickened shoot axis. Because this is harvested, he is no longer to show what else is in him. In the second year, it forms, if you leave it, branched inflorescences. The plant has elongated, long-stemmed leaves, which you can also use as leafy vegetables or raw in salads.
The kohlrabi absorbs its nutrients via the taproot. Depending on the variety, kohlrabi tubers can reach a diameter of 5 to 20 cm and weigh 100 g to an impressive 8 kg: enough vegetables for a large family, including the hungry neighborhood stomachs. The tubers are elongated or round in shape. However, if you put the pitch of your kohlrabi plants too close, your kohlrabi harvest may be cylindrically shaped: a result of the lack of light.
Blue and white kohlrabi varieties
In Germany, around 54 varieties of kohlrabi are cultivated: 40 white kohlrabi varieties - only 14 varieties have a blue skin. If you have the ambition to harvest bombastic big kohlrabi, use seeds of the varieties (white) giant or (blue) superschmelz. Incidentally, the white varieties mature faster than the blue ones.
Prefer kohlrabi, sowing and planting times
Kohlrabi is one of the fast starters among the vegetables. There are only 12 to 20 weeks between sowing and harvesting - depending on variety and location.
Prefer kohlrabi
Optimal to pull on the kohlrabi are pots of 4 - 5 cm in diameter. To germinate, he needs a bright and warm location. Temperatures between 12 and 16 ° C are optimal. If the plants are slightly larger (3 - 4 leaves), they can also be cooler. Starting at the end of February, you can start growing on the windowsill, in the greenhouse or in the cold frame. It is also important that you keep the plantlets evenly moist.
Sow in the field
From the end of April you can sow the vegetables directly in the field. To do this, you pull about 1 cm deep grooves and give the seeds into it. Pay attention to a sufficient distance. If the plants are bigger, you can thin them out. At least 20 cm distance between the plants should remain. If you sow kohlrabi later (this is possible by mid-July), the plants need more space. Then you should keep at least 30 cm distance.
Plant kohlrabi
April is the right time to plant the preferred small kohlrabis in the public pool. If you do not feel like having enough room to cultivate the plants yourself, you can of course also buy some pulled kohlrabi plants from the gardener and then set them straight into the field. If there are still frosty nights, you should cover the culture with fleece. Although the plants survive cold for a short time, but stretch the weapons, if it freezes properly. To cover your need for the tasty vegetables over the summer time, you can seep in the field at intervals of 2 weeks. At Kohlrabi you can almost watch it grow so fast.
The thing with the neighborhood
Kohlrabi is a cabbage species and thus belongs to the family of cruciferous vegetables. All types of cabbage are quite susceptible to pest infestations - such as the white cabbage fly, the cabbage whitefly or fleas - or other cabbage diseases such as the cabbage hernia. If you cultivate too many plants of the same family in one location, there is a greater risk that pests will nest and / or the plants get sick.
You can hope for a lush kohlrabi harvest if you place your kohlrabi plants in the neighborhood with bush beans, radishes or together with tagetes and marigolds in the bed. Also with cucumbers, potatoes, peas leeks, radish, celery, tomatoes and onions Kohlrabi get along well. Lettuce, radish, beetroot, salsify and runner beans are also in harmony with kohlrabi.
Maintain and harvest kohlrabi
For magnificent kohlrabi tubers, it is important that no major fluctuations in the moisture balance occur. Your kohlrabis need water every day, especially in summer. Otherwise there is a risk that the tubers will crack or become woody. If you sow directly into the field after the early varieties, it is advisable to increase the nutrient content of the soil with horny flour or nettle. Little, but continuous here is wholesome for a good harvest.
Kohlrabi harvest and storage
You should not let early kohlrabi varieties get so big. If they are smaller, they taste very spicy and are very tender. If you want to harvest your kohlrabi, you cut it shortly under the tuber. Early varieties are only stable for about 2 weeks. The late varieties you can easily store for several weeks in a cool cellar and consume as needed.
Tips & Tricks
• In case of pest infestation or disease, the plants belong to the garbage - never in the compost
• Plant kohlrabi not too shallow or too deep: otherwise they are not stable or the tuber has earth contact and could rot.
• If you have harvested kohlrabi, you should not grow cabbage in the next 3-4 years. The soil must recover and there is an increased risk of pest infestation and disease.
• In the case of a lack of nutrients or too little water Kohlrabi starts to bloom: no tuber is formed.
• The fullness of kohlrabi ingredients you use optimally, if you cook the kohlrabi as a whole and then peel.