Consider the weird and wonderful
Thanks to the winter hours I’ve spent over the years studying seed catalogs, some weird but wonderful vegetables have found their way to our table.
Kohlrabi, for example. The swollen stems that look like little green or purple spaceships are ready to harvest just six weeks after you sow the seeds. The white flesh is sweet and crisp, ideal for serving raw with dips. It’s also good lightly stirfried.
Kohlrabi is a member of the cabbage family. Like all its kin, it may be attacked by cabbage worms. You can cover the plants with mosquito netting or summer-weight row-cover fabric to keep cabbage butterflies from laying their eggs on kohlrabi.
Each plant requires only 4 inches of space. I like to make repeat sowings throughout the summer in any tiny open area.
Romanesco, another member of the cabbage family, is sometimes considered a type of broccoli, sometimes a cauliflower. But whatever you call it, this Italian vegetable produces a beautiful, palegreen spiraled head.
Cabbage worms seem not as attracted to Romanesco as they are to the crops’ relatives. If you plant the seeds now, the crop will be ready to harvest in cool autumn weather, when the flavor is at its peak.
Bulb fennel produces its enlarged bulb-like structure just above the ground. Not to be confused with herb fennel, which is grown for its leaves, bulb fennel is grown for its crunchy layers of curved sections you can serve with dips, chop up in a salad, or lightly stir-fry.
Fennel is usually harvested when the bulb is 2 to 4 inches in diameter, about 80 days after sowing the seed. Another option: Harvest baby bulbs in just 50 days. For fullsized bulbs, thin plants to 6 inches apart. Baby fennel requires only 4 inches between plants.
Belgian endive rewards patience with a winter treat. An heirloom also known as Witloof chicory, it needs about four months to grow in the garden. You then dig up the roots after the first frost, pot them in soil, and grow them in total darkness to produce tender cylindrical heads called chicons.
This European delicacy makes tasty and welcome winter salads that are next to impossible to find if you don’t grow your own; they droop if exposed to light for as much as an hour.
Radicchio is another form of chicory I never met until I grew my own. It makes a small salad head that has a nutty, slightly bitter flavor and gorgeous red leaves. The plants are cold-hardy and grow best in cool weather. I usually plant seeds in mid to late July, so that the plants mature in late fall. Radicchio is pretty enough to include in ornamental fall pots.