📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): End of Season & Brussels Sprouts
- 🥦 Late Brassica Harvests: Growers share their early November harvests. Crops like broccoli, kohlrabi, kale, and daikon radishes can survive light frosts and stay in the garden quite late into the season.
- 🌱 Brussels Sprouts Debate: Is it worth growing Brussels sprouts? Some growers feel the 5-6 month investment isn’t worth the relatively small yield (around 500g / 1 lb per plant). Others love them, noting that with proper feeding (like chicken manure tea) and good hybrids, the yields are massive and pest-free.
- 🌸 Garden Coziness: A true forum chat featuring the last surviving autumn flowers, overwintering leeks, and, of course, garden cats!
Quote from gala7496:
Good evening! I still haven’t harvested all my broccoli. I tried today, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It is so incredibly resilient!
Galya, what is the name of your broccoli hybrid?
Quote from Aleksan9ra:
Galya, what is the name of your broccoli hybrid?
It’s complete chaos in my seed stash right now. I couldn’t tell you the exact name, but it is definitely a late-season variety. All the seeds were from Tumanov (a seed vendor). It’s very productive.
Took these photos yesterday while I was clearing things out.
And here are some flowers, also from yesterday.
And my son’s cat, who was staying with me while my son was away.
Galya, gorgeous photos!!! Thanks! It makes me want spring to come already!
Lyuda, have you checked on the onions in your garden bed yet? I looked, and there are no green shoots, just root growth. Following your example, I planted two beds of fall onions. But it is very warm for November. I don’t know how it is in your area.
I ordered seeds from Tumanov, currently waiting on them. I won’t grow regular onions from seed; I just can’t get it right. But I really want to grow leeks, so I’ll try my best with those.
Quote from gala7496:
And my son’s cat…
Good kitty, was he nervous when he arrived? When I bring my cat Basya to the dacha for the first day, she refuses to eat or drink, and spends the first night sleeping inside her carrier. She slowly gets used to it after that.
Quote from Galiy:
Good kitty, was he nervous when he arrived?
This is in my apartment. I was too scared to take him to the countryside; he might run away. His name is Lyova (Leo), and this is the second time he’s stayed with me. Everything is fine, he behaved very well. He was always wherever I was—if I was at the computer, he was on the sofa; if I was in the kitchen, he was on the kitchen sill (where the photo was taken). If I’m lying on the sofa reading my phone, he might jump right over my head without even touching me. Cats in general love me, and I love them, it’s some sort of cosmic connection. 😸
Quote from gala7496:
I still haven’t harvested all my broccoli. I tried today, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It is so incredibly resilient!
My broccoli is still sitting out there too, 5 plants (half of them are flowering, I’m growing them out for the birds). I also have one kohlrabi left in the bed, three Brussels sprouts plants, one cauliflower, three ‘Reflex’ curly kale plants, and six ‘Megaton’ cabbages! 😁
And the Napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage) self-seeded, which is incredibly convenient—it grows like lettuce, doesn’t taste bitter at all, you just keep picking and picking… Also, I still have two patches of radishes growing: half a bed of black radishes and half a bed of green ‘Margelan’ radishes, plus about 12 daikons left.
Honestly, it’s a shame the freezing nights are starting… everything is going to freeze.
Quote from gala7496:
His name is Lyova (Leo)…
You can tell by the look in his eyes that he is definitely a Leo! 🦁
Quote from Maria Suvorova:
…I still have two patches of radishes growing: half a bed of black radishes and half a bed of green ‘Margelan’ radishes, plus about 12 daikons left…
Maria, at this point you could basically transition to a continuous year-round growing cycle! 😂
Hello Lyudmila, Masha, and everyone on the forum! Masha, you still have so many vegetables in the garden! Light frosts aren’t scary for daikon and radishes… Heck, one year I literally brushed the snow off my cabbage before cutting it, and it thawed out perfectly fine….
Today we also cut three Brussels sprouts plants. I love how they taste, but they are so unproductive. From three entire bushes, I only got one small salad bowl of sprouts. Maybe they require a very specific growing technique.
My garden season is officially over… The only garden plants I have left are some tissue-cultured (microclone) plants I bought back in the spring. I left them on the windowsill in the apartment so I wouldn’t be completely bored this winter, plus they are still very small….
Quote from Siverka:
Today we also cut three Brussels sprouts plants. I love how they taste, but they are so unproductive.
Someone else on the forum was complaining that Brussels sprouts are unproductive… I don’t know, I get a ton of them! From 5 plants, we literally can’t eat all the sprouts. True, my husband refuses to eat them… But at least I got him used to kohlrabi, radishes, and daikon!))
Quote from gala7496:
Lyuda, have you checked on the onions in your garden bed yet? …I won’t grow regular onions from seed… But I really want to grow leeks.
Galya, I haven’t checked the onions yet. I’m going to the village on Tuesday, I will definitely try to take a look.
Starting Wednesday, we have a sharp temperature drop to below freezing, and it won’t warm up again for the next month, though we won’t have severe hard frosts either.
Growing leeks is not difficult; it’s much easier than growing bulb onions, but for some reason, the seeds germinate terribly poorly for me—maybe it’s just my luck.
Quote from Maria Suvorova:
Someone else on the forum was complaining that Brussels sprouts are unproductive…
Masha, I also stopped growing them because you have to grow them for a very long time, and the yield is quite small.
Quote from Aleksan9ra:
…and the yield is quite small.
To me, they’ve always just smelled awful while cooking. 🤢
As for onions, I don’t know what it is, but I can never grow onions from seedlings indoors. At a certain point, they just start dying on me, then I get frustrated and throw them all away. But outside, directly sown from seed into the bed—they grow great! Maybe they overheat indoors and require a different potting mix than the tomatoes.
Quote from Aleksan9ra:
Masha, I also stopped growing them because you have to grow them for a very long time, and the yield is quite small.
Lyuda, I don’t know—I have zero problems with them. I’ve been growing them for four years now; it’s just nice to have for variety! 🙂
Quote from Maria Suvorova:
I don’t know, I get a ton of them! From 5 plants, we literally can’t eat all the sprouts.
That truly is a rich harvest!
I love using them in vegetable stews—I just made one today. If you have any excess, you can blanch and freeze them. It’s a really great way to add variety to your winter vegetable rotation.
Quote from gala7496:
And my son’s cat…
Please excuse me, I couldn’t resist. He looks exactly like our youngest cat!
Quote from Maria Suvorova:
Lyuda, I don’t know—I have zero problems with them.
Masha, what do you mean “zero problems”? You have to take care of them for 5-6 months: feeding, watering, weeding, and the end result is just 500g (1 lb) per bush.
But your photos convinced me to try one more time. I just need to make sure I buy a really good hybrid seed.
Quote from Aleksan9ra:
Growing leeks is not difficult… but the seeds germinate terribly poorly for me
Mine are equally stubborn to germinate, and very uneven. My leeks are still sitting in the garden bed; I have very few this year. However, in the greenhouse, ‘Red Baron’ bulb onions self-seeded completely on their own—no watering or dancing around them required! I think from now on, I will start sowing a little bit of onion seed directly in the greenhouse for seedlings, in addition to my main planting of onion sets.
Quote from Aleksan9ra:
You have to take care of them for 5-6 months: feeding, watering, weeding, and the end result is just 500g per bush.
Lyuda, I sow them for seedlings along with everything else in late March. Then they go into the garden bed together with everything else (except the Napa cabbage). About three times a season, I drench them with chicken manure tea. I water all my cabbages—broccoli, cauliflower, head cabbage, all of it—just walking through the beds with a watering can. And that is literally all I do to them! Pests don’t touch my Brussels sprouts at all.
I feel like cauliflower and Romanesco are much fussier—you really need to foliar spray those with Boron. My cabbage bed is prepped with the contents of our chicken coop, and all the brassicas grow beautifully.
I always plant the exact same variety—I buy it from ‘Zolushka’ in our co-op seed orders. I believe it’s called ‘Brilliant F1’.
Quote from Da4nica:
I think from now on, I will start sowing a little bit of onion seed directly in the greenhouse for seedlings…
That exact thought won’t leave my mind! But to be honest, I don’t want to go to the dacha right now at all. I’m just waiting for a nice frosty, sunny day. We have very strong winds right now. ((
Quote from Aleksan9ra:
Masha, what do you mean “zero problems”? You have to take care of them for 5-6 months… and the end result is just 500g (1 lb) per bush.
Lyuda, 500g from a single bush is excellent! For most Brussels sprouts varieties, that is the stated maximum yield, and we can’t always even reach the stated amount. Masha’s ‘Brilliant F1’ variety claims over 1 kg (2.2 lbs), but it’s a late-season one. If you want an early variety with that kind of yield, look for ‘Franklin’.
But Brussels sprouts are definitely an acquired taste; in our family, the entire harvest went straight to the compost/trash. Out of the brassica family, mizuna greens also didn’t work for us.
