Hate sprouts? Growing your own might change your mind
RESEARCH suggests Brussels sprouts could disappear from the Christmas dinner plate by 2020. But gardeners who grow them say the flavour of a home-grown sprout is so much more intense than shop-bought and an essential accompaniment to festive fare.
So if you really want to save the humble sprout, learn how to harvest your own ready for Christmas 2019.
PREPARE THE SOIL: Work in plenty of compost in the autumn and choose a sheltered and sunny spot for the crop. The ground mustn’t be acidic, so add lime if necessary in winter. You need firm soil for sprouts, so dig it over in autumn, not immediately before planting.
WHEN TO SOW: Sow indoors at 13°C-16°C in February and March. Seeds for late varieties which will be ready for Christmas should be sown in April and planted out in June.
They need a lot of space, so plant around 80cm apart. Seedlings, should be thinned to around 8cm apart and transplanted when they are around 15cm high, watering the rows the day before moving to their new positions.
KEEP THE CROP GOING: After watering in well, you’ll need to hoe regularly, water in dry weather and protect seedlings from birds.
Give your crop a top-up feed or a general purpose organic fertiliser in August and water it in. In autumn, stake tall varieties and earth up around the stems. HARVEST TIME: Begin when the sprouts at the base of the stem have reached walnut size and are still closed tightly. Snap them off or cut them with a sharp knife. WHICH SPROUT, WHEN?: For a Christmas crop, choose a late variety such as ‘Topline’, ‘Braveheart’ or ‘Citadel’. ‘Trafalgar’ is said to be more child-friendly as it’s sweeter-tasting and produces heavy crops December to March. TROUBLESHOOTING: Sprouts are generally pretty easy to grow but can suffer from being ‘blown’, when they open into small, flattened ‘blown’ rosettes, caused by being grown in loose soil or shaken loose by winds. Growth can also suffer if not watered enough in hot weather.