Brussels Sprouts Leaves are Delicious

Bob Bauer

December 12, 2016 (Last Updated: March 06, 2023) | Reading Time: 1 minutes

December 12, 2016

You'll be glad to know that Brussels sprouts leaves are delicious. Now if your sprouts don't form heads, like mine this year, you can eat the leaves. We just ate the top leaves so far and they tasted like mild Brussels sprouts or cabbage. The stems were a little stringy but fiber is how you keep your intestines clean..

I'll be removing the stems as we work down the plant because any tougher than the top leaves would be a choking hazard. I found out that cauliflower leaves are edible too so my compost pile is getting smaller as my fridge fills up..

December 13, 2016

Well, the cauliflower leaf picking didn't go as expected. There was a greyish green mildew on many of the leaves, and a whitish haze on parts of many of them like fungus. Little aphid colonies abounded and little gray half domes were here and there housing I know not what. Cabbage caterpillars hid on the veins and white flies kept hopping into the picking bowl..

When a spider jumped in I decided I'd rather eat frozen mixed vegetables from Wal Mart than the floura fauna soup I had in the bowl. Broccoli leaves are edible too so the adventure gos on..

More from Efundies

Hands on a Pile of Dirt

I Keep Hauling My Garden Trimmings

It's much easier to trudge through the mud with the cart than try to burn wet sticks in the rain.

I Picked the Last of the Artichokes

Some of the chokes were wilted. I'll add artichokes to my list of wilted veggies.

I Got a Fourth Planting of Lettuce

Why so much lettuce you might ask. Well, truth be known, my third planting didn't come up.

It's Time To Get Your Winter Squash

Acorn, spaghetti, and butternut squash will start to mold if they sit on the damp ground for too long. Cut them from the vines leaving an inch of stem, wipe them down with a 1% bleach solution, and put them in a cool place that doesn't freeze.

Well the Frost Was On the Pumpkin

It seems early, but with 70°days in the extended forecast, maybe I'll get my Indian Summer after all. I don't actually have any pumpkin again this year.

Yesterday I Discovered Baby Carrots Growing In the Shade

I had planted them in early spring and thought the slugs had gotten them. I forgot about them and some germinated, grew a bit, and then went dormant due to the lack of sunlight.

No Gardening Got Done On Christmas Day

Once you get out of the house and start moving around lots of things will dispel your cabin fever. Being cold makes you want to go back in but a fire keeps you entertained.

It's Time To Make Up Your Christmas List

The stems that came out from your main plants, touched down on the ground and rooted, are called daughters. You can cut the stems and dig up the plants, replant the daughters, and double your strawberry patch.

Winter Tree Pruning

The sap has retreated to the roots so there is less bleeding from the cut. It's also a good excuse to build a burn pile.

I got to Fish Emulsion my Crucifers Today

Plant asparagus once, and harvest it for 20 years. If everything in the garden was as easy, we'd have nothing left to do except weeding.

Happy New Year Gardeners

Sitting inside the greenhouse door, watching the snow blow horizontally by, listening to the freight train roar of the wind, I wondered if I should put off starting my spring garden. Some days gardening is just an excuse for not doing other things like work.

Try Eating the Leaves of your Broccoli

There was nothing in the water after the first rince. I don't know how long it will be before we eat them because the cook turned her nose up at them.

I Made a Funny Discovery Today

With a week of rainy weather forecasted I would be wise to postpone my traditional April 15th planting of corn. I planted it on March 20th last year in my over abundant optimism at being re zoned at 8b, and had 10 frost nights all the way up to May 20th in which they required covering.

Who wouldn't want to sit in this bench, surrounded by tulips.

Gardening

Gardening is a perfect hobby for automation. You can automate your watering, heating, fans, and temperature sensors.

Green Peas on Black Round Plate

PGIF (Peas Go in First) Spring Planting

(Peas Go In First) Spring planting is hearlded by the planting of the peas.

All of the Garlic Are Up Now

I've had to weed the patch already to, not because of weeds , but because of a plethora of poppies plants. When poppies finish going to seed their stems are tan colored like straw mulch, so when they fall to the ground I leave them, hence I'll never run out of poppies.

Bad News On the Home Front Today

The ground has been frozen for a couple weeks and the cats have found easy digging on my compost rich garden mounds. They leave their deposits under a little pile of dirt so I can easily go along and remove them, but it's not a warm fuzzy feeling to add to my spring planting pleasure.

The Most Colorful Thing In the Garden

They seem to be taking over the fence line from the grapes. They don't lose their leaves in the winter so I'm getting more and more seclusion.

I've Gotten Tired of Picking Broccolini

It's not crop rotation because cruciferous plants should not be planted in the same spot for two years. My rows get an 18" wide by 2" thick covering of fine compost three to four times a year so the soil I'm planting in is always changing.

My Artichoke Plants Look Terrible

Yellow wilted leaves and green droopy ones. The soil is moist around them but they have not the will to live.

Whelp I Did It Again - Rigged Up My Shade Cloth

Rigged up my shade cloth and got a huge chunk of ground cleared. I was glad I had watered it the day before because it took only about 15 min.

2 Liter Bottle Hydroponics

2 liter bottles make excellent hydroponics containers and they're cheap. I've had excellent results growing lettuce in them, and you don't have to water very often at all.

My Garden Often Feels Like A Dissertation

An extremely complex body of work composed one word at a time. I find myself absorbing it one word at a time and letting sentences unfold.

I Was Surprised at How Well the Brussel's Sprouts Overwintered

It seems a shame but they were only eye candy. Peas are one of natures edible candies.

Garden Chair

I move it from sun to shade and do most of my prioritizing from it. From this throne I can see when the corn leaves are starting to turn dull, or the zucchini leaves wilt and know it's time to water.

Forest and Stream in Winter

I Don't Know Why Weeding

Winter gardening can be an emotional rollercoaster ride.

I Never Did Get My Horseradish Harvested

The freezing nights came and killed the leaves, they fell to the ground, the earthworms came up at night and ate them, and now there's just stalks radiating from the base. I guess I could go ahead and dig some of the roots up, wash them and peel them with a potato peeler.

It's Time To Pull the Mulch Back

Encircling them with Deadline is always a Spring chore for me. I can usually put my cold frames over them to keep the cats from stepping on the bait, but this year they are way too big.

Getting The Weeding Done In The Garden

I had broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts in rootbound six packs, and didn't have time to weed outside the areas they were going. They got planted in assorted rows in two patches because they have the same water requirements.

Three Of My 10 Tadpoles Came Out Of Hiding Today

Three Of My 10 Tadpoles Came Out Of Hiding Today

I Cannot Believe That My Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach

What it does have are jagged leaves from birds eating it. Either the birds are keeping the fly's that lay the eggs away, or they are eating the maggots that emerge.

Perpetual Spinach

It was 10' tall so I trimmed it way back to 5' because I don't want more shade. It couldn't be in a better spot though because it's close to the eastern fence in an area of ornamental plantings.

Good News All You Pizza Lovers

Now that tomatoes have risen on the nutritional scale so has pizza, because tomato sauce counts. If you put onions, peppers, mushrooms and olives on it you get health food instead of junk food.

Plant Snow Peas in January

Peas get planted in there this month so I have to start closing the door. February 2nd is outdoor pea planting time here but I get to start them a month early in the greenhouse.

Remember What Peace There May Be In Silence

The fog has replaced the shadows, and gray is in the air. Dormancy abounds and the gardens life is muted.

We Had Kale Last Night

I guess the cold nights that sweeten up the brussels sprouts also make the kale more tasty. Dunno, gonna pick some more today.

January is time to Start Seeds

I had to wear my rubber boots to check the trap in the garden. It was buried.

The Only Problem With the Incredible Amount of Kale

I'm going to try putting Apple Cider Vinegar on it to kill the taste. It's the jagged leafed purple and green kind that used to taste more like spjnach.

My Discomfort With The Scattered Around Swiss Chard

With every rain squall that causes me to take refuge in the greenhouse, a bunch of sparrows decend upon them, eagerly ripping at the leaves in haste because they know I'll be back shortly. They must wait in the surrounding grape and blackberry vines for me to disappear.

I Got A Row Of Peas Planted

The puppy's name is Anny, and my garden may never be the same. She thoroughly enjoyed running up and down the bird netted trellis, barking and biting at it.