Have you ever tried a freshly harvested kohlrabi raw? The taste of this vegetable is beguilingly juicy, fresh and spicy and the fiber, vitamins and minerals it contains support your health. Good news: growing kohlrabi is easy. Even a beginner.

Interesting facts about the tuber vegetable

The origin of the kohlrabi is obscure. The first areas under cultivation were in Central Asia and the Mediterranean. Kohlrabi only appeared in European herbal books in the 16th century. It has been cultivated in German-speaking countries in particular since the 19th century and is considered a typical German vegetable.

Kohlrabi not only tastes good, the vegetable is low in calories and rich in healthy ingredients: Kohlrabi contains a lot of vitamin C and carotenoids in the leaves, which the body converts to vitamin A. Kohlrabi is also rich in magnesium, potassium, calcium and iron. Anthocyanins can be found in the blue varieties - these substances reduce the risk of heart and circulatory diseases.

Soil preparation: all-round feel-good package for your kohlrabi in the garden bed

Although kohlrabi does not have particularly high soil requirements, you should prepare the bed in autumn for the cultivation of the delicious tubers. Mix the soil with plenty of mature compost and if you can get hold of cow or horse manure, incorporate it. The bed must then 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-consuming kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi look and weight

Kohlrabi is actually a biennial plant. In the first year it forms a thickened shoot axis. Because this is harvested, he no longer has time to show what else is in him. In the second year, if you let it, it forms branched inflorescences. The plant has oblong, long-stemmed leaves that you can also use as a leafy vegetable or raw in salads.

The kohlrabi absorbs its nutrients through the taproot. Depending on the variety, kohlrabi tubers can reach a diameter of 5 to 20 cm and weigh from 100 g to an impressive 8 kg: enough vegetables for a large family including the hungry neighbors’ stomachs. The tubers are oblong or round in shape. However, if you space your kohlrabi plants too closely, your kohlrabi harvest may be cylindrical: a result of the lack of light.

Blue and white kohlrabi varieties

About 54 varieties of kohlrabi are grown in Germany: 40 white varieties of kohlrabi - only 14 varieties have a blue shell. If you have the ambition to harvest bombastic kohlrabi, use seeds of the (white) giant or (blue) supermelt varieties. By the way, the white varieties ripen faster than the blue ones.

Prefer kohlrabi, sowing and planting times

Kohlrabi is one of the quick starters among vegetables. There are only 12 to 20 weeks between sowing and harvesting - depending on the variety and location.

prefer kohlrabi

Pots with a diameter of 4 - 5 cm are ideal for growing the kohlrabi. It needs a bright and warm location to germinate. Temperatures between 12 and 16°C are optimal. If the plants are a bit larger (3 - 4 leaves) they can also stand cooler. You can start growing on the windowsill, in the greenhouse or in the cold frame from the end of February. It is also important that you keep the plants evenly moist.

Sow outdoors

From the end of April you can sow the vegetables directly outdoors. To do this, make about 1 cm deep grooves and put the seeds in them. Make sure you keep a sufficient distance. If the plants are larger, you can thin them out like this. Plants should be at least 20 cm apart. If you sow kohlrabi later (this is possible until mid-July), the plants need more space. Then you should keep a distance of at least 30 cm.

Plant out kohlrabi

April is the right time to plant the early, small kohlrabi in the open-air bed. If you don't want to or don't have enough space to grow the plants yourself, you can of course also buy early kohlrabi plants from the gardener and then plant them outdoors immediately. If there are still frosty nights, you should cover the culture with fleece. The plants survive cold for a short time, but stretch their arms when it really freezes. In order to cover your need for the delicious vegetables over the summer time, you can sow them outdoors at intervals of 2 weeks. You can almost watch kohlrabi, it grows so fast.

The neighborhood thing

Kohlrabi is a type of cabbage and thus belongs to the cruciferous vegetable family. All cabbage varieties are quite susceptible to pest infestations - for example cabbage white fly, cabbage white or flea beetles - or other cabbage diseases such as clubroot. If you cultivate too many plants of the same family in one location, the risk of pests nesting and/or the plants becoming ill increases.

You can hope for a lush kohlrabi harvest if you place your kohlrabi plants in the bed next to bush beans, radishes or together with marigolds and marigolds. Kohlrabi also get along very well with cucumbers, potatoes, peas, leeks, radishes, celery, tomatoes and onions. Lettuce, radish, beetroot, black salsify and runner beans also harmonize with kohlrabi.

Caring for and harvesting kohlrabi

For magnificent kohlrabi tubers, it is important that there are no large fluctuations in the moisture balance. Your kohlrabi needs water every day, especially in summer. Otherwise there is a risk that the tubers will tear or become woody. If you sow directly outdoors after the early varieties, it is advisable to increase the nutrient content of the soil with horn meal or nettle manure. A little but continuous is digestible here for a good harvest.

Kohlrabi harvest and storage

You should not let early kohlrabi varieties grow so large. If they are even smaller, they taste particularly spicy and are very tender. If you want to harvest your kohlrabi, cut it off just below the tuber. Early varieties only keep for about 2 weeks. You can easily store the late varieties in a cool cellar for several weeks and use them as needed.

tips and tricks

• In the event of pest infestation or disease, the plants belong in the garbage - never in the compost

• Don't plant kohlrabi too shallow or too deep: otherwise they won't be stable or the tuber will be in contact with the ground and could rot.

• If you have harvested kohlrabi, you should not grow cabbage there for the next 3-4 years. The soil needs to recover and there is an increased risk of pest infestation and disease.

• If there is a lack of nutrients or too little water, kohlrabi starts to flower: no tuber is formed.

• You can make the best use of the full range of kohlrabi ingredients if you cook the kohlrabi whole and only peel them afterwards.

Category:

Vegetable garden