Brassicas in a Northern Clime
rule like dinos in another time
if you plant early spring, they’ll bolt to seeds
when you let them go, they displace the weeds
root veg, tight heads, stem, or leaf,
all flower with four-lobed motif
sprouting in days
evolved so many ways
the harvest fills trugs
just watch out for slugs
The very cold-tolerant Brassica family can give us Northerners a huge harvest all the way up to Thanksgiving–sometimes even Christmas–without protection.
Also known as cruciferous vegetables for the resemblance of their 4-petaled flowers to a cross. Their seedlings also have four lobes: two on each of the cotyledons, which emerge before the true leaves appear.
They are grown for different edible parts, varying from flowers (broccoli and cauliflower), to roots (radishes and turnips), to leaves or heads of leaves (kale, arugala, bok choi, cabbage, Brussels sprouts), to stems (kohrabi), or both florets and stems (broccoli rabe and hon tsai tai).
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