Brassica Plants

Brassica plants aka the cabbage family or Brassicaceae make up the largest family of edible plants. These include:

Here is a bundle of kale to put in a smoothy. Some people make kale chips out of dinosaur kale like Toscano.

Arugula
Broccoli
Broccoli Raab
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Chinese Cabbage
Collards
Cress
Kale
Kohlrabi
Mizuna
Mustard Greens
Pac Choi
Radish
Rutabaga
Tatsoi
Turnip

Brassica Plants - 9/4-9/10, 2023

Monday, September 4, 2023

Good morning and Happy Labor Day! Yes, it is Labor Day and the Farm Store is closed. Originally, I was going to have it open but since we had so few customers on Saturday, I am going to enjoy a day off, which I deserve. Working in the store six days a week plus filling all seed orders, doing social media and working on two websites is a lot of work so I deserve a day off.

Nacho and two of his sons came out to do some work in the greenhouse. They were putting in new flooring and shelving. Then Nacho fired up David's new used grill/smoker and cooked lunch for us--fajita meat, rib eyes, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. David made a vermicelli salad and Matt brought a chocolate cake. I was busy pulling seed orders plus I had done dishes and a load of laundry.

The meal was delicious. There are plenty of good leftovers to eat tonight. They left around 1pm and I went back to pulling orders. I am still not finished but I am done for the day. It is now 5pm. My back is killing me. There are seven more hours to this half price sale. It has been an exhausting day.

Foghorn was put in the tiny chicken coop until someone decides to take him so I don't have to worry about him attacking me again. I feel sad but I am not willing to take the chance of being injured by a rooster for trying to put my hens away. It is 102° Fahrenheit right now and I just came in from collecting eggs. I got 11 eggs today so I will have plenty of eggs in the store refrigerator for you tomorrow.

For the rest of the evening, I am going to just sit on the couch for the most part because my back is killing me. I should have just stayed inside today instead of pulling orders but some of the orders were four pages long.

Brassica Plants

A broccoli harvest from the past. Broccoli is David's favorite vegetable so we grow a lot of it.

Brassica plants are mostly cooler weather plants. They grow best in early spring and in late fall in Texas. There are not many brassica plants that are heat tolerant. Don't even think about trying to grow them in the Texas summer. If they do grow, they will bolt as it gets hot or taste bitter.

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Good Tuesday morning! Can you believe it is time to head back to work? I cannot. I worked most of yesterday pulling orders. Well, the 50% sale is gone but we have a new one for you below.

Today was an extremely busy day. I continued to pull orders from the weekend. Then I started closing orders and my teen helper pulled some orders.

We had three large orders with the biggest order being ten pages long. This is our biggest order ever and I cannot send it out yet because we are out of two seed varieties that are coming in.

Someone was supposed to pick up our guineas today as well as a seed order but she never showed or messaged me. No customers came which was good because I had to work until almost 7pm to get caught up with the orders. I had three orders ready for pickup and none of them came to pick them up.

Brassica Plants

Brassica plants include Golden Acre cabbage on the left. Also in the photo are purple zinnias and some watermelon vines.

Brassica plants are healthy for your body. They have vitamins C and K as well as beta-carotene and glucosinolates which help keep cancer away. Brassicas also have plenty of fiber which helps with digestion and can help lower the bad cholesterol, also known as LDL or low-density lipoproteins. HDL is the good cholesterol. LDL is considered to be bad because it helps to clog up your arteries.

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

I started feeling bad in the night for my attack rooster, Foghorn so I decided to put him back in with the hens since apparently no one wants him or the other rooster, Astor. This morning, I had Matthew put him back in the hen house. Now every time I go in there, I will have to take the net with me because Foghorn is afraid of the net. Whenever I need the net in there, Foghorn runs to the nesting boxes.

I hung up a lot of fly traps in the chicken area this morning. They are awful to use. It was my first time to use them. I hung up most of them as the flies continued to be all over me.

For weeks now, flies are thick out there. Other years, our outdoor workers have hung various fly traps that work for a while but we have no one this year to do it. I hope these things work because I hate going in there when flies are swarming. Also, I know we need to clean out the hen houses but now with so few of us here, there never seems to be enough time. I start a project, and somehow someone comes to the store and wants help. Then I have to forget what I am doing, clean up and run over to take care of a customer. Sometimes when I get over there, I find out the person doesn't even want what we have. They sometimes ask a question about whether we sell trees, or if they can rent out one of our buildings to live in.

Brassica Plants

Yes, we grew this giant radish. They don't usually get this big. Radishes are brassica plants.

Pests can be a big problem when growing brassica plants. Lots of times, annoying bugs want to eat them. You can actually use a fine mesh netting to cover your brassica plants that will help to keep nasty egg laying bugs off of your leaves. A really good thing to use is a type of cloth available in the fabric store called Tulle. It comes in many colors and is used to make little dancing tutus.

Another way is to use Companion Planting in the garden. I had to research companion planting for a garden club talk we did one time in San Antonio so I turned it into web pages.

I know it is disgusting but get some good gardening gloves and examine your plants frequently. When you see a creepy crawly walking around on your brassica plants, take him off and smoosh him. Examine the backs of leaves and remove tiny insect eggs. Destroy them. That is how you win the battle and grow successful brassica plants.

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Good morning. What a morning this has been. First, I planted all of my chitted potatoes that have been on my island for weeks. I watered all of my cloth pots and I have five gingers coming up plus two potatoes. I also have two peanuts! Then I trimmed my sweet potato vines in the kitchen windowsill and placed a lot of new vines in water to root.

I filled orders and started a project of building some new pull down menus on the website so you can see seeds more easily. We now have a tab for seeds that are on sale as well as a Native flower seed tab and an All America Selection Winners tab. This took hours to do because I had to manually enter every single variety under each tab.

Meanwhile, Matt cleaned out the chicken coops. I really appreciate that.

In the late afternoon, two sets of customers visited at the same time, of course.

Brassica Plants

Champion collards are brassica plants.

When you decide to grow delicious brassica plants, expect the critters to come. We enjoy eating these vegetables, so you know deer and smaller animals like rabbits will want to dine on your crops. Covering the crops with row covers or tulle can help keep them away.

Of course, beetles, aphids, and tons of caterpillars will also be all over them. Pick them off by hand. Spray them with organic Safer Soap to help the bugs stay off of them.

Regular weeding will also keep the animals and bugs away. Brassica plants love nitrogen so once a month, you will want to use a liquid nitrogen fertilizer on them.

Friday, September 8, 2023

Good Friday morning! Happy Birthday to my brother, John! Today, it is supposed to get up to 106°. I really have no words for this horrible heat that we have had since June. It is horrible. That is all I can say. The Farm Store is open and I have just three dozen eggs. I have sold six dozen eggs this week which is unusual since it has been a while since I have had that many. The young hens are beginning to lay. At least ten of them are laying but we should be getting eggs from another 25 young hens plus the older hens.

Welcome To Our Friends From The Almanac

Today, we started running a three week advertisement in the Almanac online newsletter. If any of you have ventured over from David's Garden Seeds®, welcome to my website! Here is the paragraph in our three featured article in the newsletter over the rest of September:

Welcome to all of our new friends from Almanac.com! We are so pleased that you have visited our website. As a special thank you, please enjoy a discount of 25% when you purchase at least $25 of our regular sized half ounce packages of seeds by using code ALMANAC25 at checkout. This special sale for our Almanac friends will be in effect from today, September 8, 2023 through September 30, 2023.

I have been filling seed orders as well as doing computer work this morning. It is 10:30am and I am already tired. Hopefully, I can stay awake for the rest of the day, not fall asleep at my desk like yesterday...

We have some Spilanthes plants growing outside. This is known as the Toothache Plant. Chew the yellow flower balls and leaves and they make your mouth numb. They do not taste good...

Closeup of Spilanthes yellow ball flowers.

We have some spilanthes plants, also known as toothache plants, in one of our raised garden beds by the driveway. I have grown this plant before in our grow tower that is located in the Farm Store.

This afternoon, we had three separate customers who all showed up at the same time.

David gave away the guineas and the Ideal 236 rooster around 5:30pm today. I was still in Fulfillment filling seed orders and he was gone. Then he came back and told me they were gone. We still have Foghorn, even though he is the one who tried to attack me.

Brassica Plants

Cauliflower is another of our favorite brassica plants.

Preserving your brassica plants can range from blanching and freezing Brussels Sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower to dehydrating the leafy brassicas and even freeze drying all of them if you are fortunate enough to have a freeze dryer.

Of course, fresh is best but you can only eat so much fresh when they are ripe. Putting some up for the hot summer and the cold winter is the goal. I have not seen these canned but I am sure someone somewhere has figured out how to can them. The really big thing now though is the freeze dryer.

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Finally! There is no trash in front of the pond. We didn't spend thousands of dollars putting the pond and gazebo in to have it look like a trash heap from the road.

Good morning. I went outside and opened everything. Then I fed the fish. Amazingly, the crumpled fence material from next door is no longer in front of our pond. Unfortunately, my husband had to ask them to move it away from our pond instead of them doing it on their own. It has been there making our place look bad for over a week. I do not understand that sort of thing.

I went out back to take care of the chickens and rabbits. Each rabbit got a new drink bottle this morning. They came in from bunnyrabbit.com yesterday. I had the most difficult time getting them inside the spring that holds the bottle in place. My hands are not what they used to be.

I had to wash the chicken water containers out because the water was not flowing out well. The chickens like to kick up dirt and pebbles and it blocks the water up inside. It took me some time to wash out four water containers but I finally got it taken care of. I dumped some feed into buckets. Some of it was in the bags and water from rain recently molded some of it. Bugs were in the corn so I got that out of the feed shed. It is truly a mess in there. I am getting things done slowly. Also, the kennel is still out there. A week ago I asked for it to be taken to the shed at the top of the hill but that did not happen. I will see if I can get Matt to take care of it tonight.

When I let the chickens out, I had to hold onto the net so Foghorn would not get me. Then I went inside and washed the inner water container out. He looked to see what I was doing a few times. I held up the net so he could see it. Then he went about eating his breakfast.

I went over to my plant area and watered my peanuts, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and ginger. Most of the pots are still empty but, hopefully, more things will start coming up.

Then I went in the house and got ready for the day. David made breakfast tacos. At 9:45am, I went out to the business and opened the store. Then I began filling orders. At two different times, two sets of customers showed up to buy seeds and garlic. The mailman came and brought a bunch more garlic bulbs so we will have more of all six garlic varieties that we had last week. David made a quick lunch which was delicious.

At 2:05pm, I closed the store. The gates closed and I went back into the house. I finally did the breakfast dishes. My back is killing me and I am finally sitting and working on the computer. I am wondering why we did not have more weekend shoppers. I realize it is still way too hot but sooner or later, it will cool off.

I cut up a couple of watermelons. No flavor but the texture is good on one. I put some in a bowl for me and the rest I took out to all of the chickens to enjoy.

Here are some of the eggs from today's gathering. I have not seen those shades of blue or gray before.

Wow! I just got 17 eggs and most all of them are from our new chickens. There are nine white ones, one light gray one, two blue ones with speckles and then some light brown ones which are from some older chickens.

The Chick Fil A food truck is in Poteet until 7pm today so we will be getting Chick Fil A for dinner tonight. It will be the first time in over four years that I have had it. I hope it is good. There are no good places to eat out here. I am excited. Matt just got the food. They told him they were closing at 6pm for a private party but their Facebook says they are there until 7pm so what on earth? Anyway, he says he got the food and is on his way.

The Chick Fil A food was so good. I think it is the best food we have had since we moved. The restaurants out here are just awful. Svengoolie was a replay again so we watched the new Indiana Jones flick that we missed in the theater. I could not rent it on Prime. I had to buy it. It was action packed and pretty good. It was hard to see some of the characters after they have aged so much but we have aged, too.

Brassica Plants

Red Bull Brussels Sprouts

Have fun when you grow brassica plants. So many of them come in more than one green. Grow some green but also grow red, purple, white, and orange. For instance, you can grow red Brussels Sprouts, purple broccoli, purple cauliflower, orange cauliflower, and so on. There is red kale and purple cabbage as well as red cabbage. They taste the same but are pretty and interesting to look at. If you need seeds that are a bit different, we most likely have them at David's Garden Seeds®.

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Watching a beautiful sunrise with Sue Ellen from the back deck.

Good morning and Happy Sunday! We had some strong winds in the night. The gate was blown open and David had let the dogs out without realizing because it was still dark. Pamela and Sue Ellen came in with no problem but I could not find Ethel at all. I finally went out before sunrise and found her trying to look for chickens. Of course, the chickens weren't out yet. Once she saw me, she came running and I got her safely inside her fenced yard. She is mostly deaf so she cannot hear me yelling for her.

I went out and took care of all of the animals. It did not take too long except for some of the food pail lids blew away and I had to search for them. I forgot to put them on tight yesterday morning and I left them sitting on the feed shed deck. Foghorn kept looking at me. I had to stop and show him the net a few times. We have a large net to help grab them if they escape and he is afraid of the net. Since he tried to attack me earlier in the week, I have been taking it in there with me.

I came in and made eggs with salsa, mushrooms, and ham in them. They were delicious. Now it is time to get ready for church.

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We went to church and then over to the Filipino food truck at Farm to Familia. It took the guy about 45 minutes to cook three plates but it was good. We came home and ate the food while we watched a Megalodon movie.

Later, there were a lot of clouds and I hoped we might get some rain but we did not. I got 13 eggs, all from the big coop. Still none from the smaller coop. I wonder why they are not laying yet but their sisters are.

Brassica Plants

Spicy arugula is a tasty addition to salads and likes cooler weather as do all brassica plants.

Don't be afraid to try new ways to cook brassica plants. For instance, most people eat cabbage in cole slaw. You can boil it in corned beef and cabbage, use it raw or steamed in stuffed cabbage wraps, or cut it into steaks with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast them in the oven. Cabbage is delicious that way.

Return from Brassica Plants to Year Five On The Farm

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