Starting spring plants

Spring is here, and nicer weather is coming. We've had some cold nights and mornings and probably will till mid to late April. You just have to watch the forecast. I moved some small plants from my work room out to the greenhouse. If temperatures get down to freezing, some of the plants, such as peppers, will freeze. We have a small wood stove in the greenhouse. So, we'll crank it up if needed.

One plant I moved out to the greenhouse was kohlrabi. Kohlrabi is kind of a cross between a cabbage and turnip. Kind of! The best time to plant kohlrabi is five or six weeks before the expected last frost. We hardly ever get them out this early. If we get them out the middle of April, we are doing well. You can plant indoors and then transplant, or you can plant right in the garden. The plants will need 10 inches between them to allow them to grow and mature. Once the plant is about 8 to 10 inches tall, they will begin forming a bulb about an inch above ground level right in the stem. This bulb will grow until it's 2 to 5 inches across. Some grow huge.

We normally start eating one now and then when it's about 2 inches across. We pull ours. We eat them raw and usually right out by the garden. I peel it with my pocket knife and then add Lawry's Seasoning Salt, which I carry in the side-by-side. Pretty tasty. Our old dog, Dutchess, liked them as well. We'll introduce Grace when we get our first kohlrabi. Kohlrabi prefers mild or cool weather. It is grown throughout the season in the North, and during fall and winter in the South.

Another spring plant I enjoy is Swiss chard. I normally plant Rainbow Swiss Chard so it has different colors in the same packet of seed. Colors include yellow, red, dark green and pale green. I normally plant some in my work room and then transplant later when they are big enough, but you can also plant the seed directly in the garden. Both work well. I use transplants in the spring and sow the seed directly in the garden in the fall. Swiss chard is a pretty plant with all the colors.

It grows in kind of a clump so I normally go around the plant and cut or break off stems that look big enough and yummy. I normally wash mine and then put in a big pot and boil it until it's soft and tender. The stems are fine to eat unless they are huge and stringy. I add garlic and maybe onions. Just before I eat the Swiss chard, I will add some apple cider vinegar. One of the neat things is Swiss chard will take a pretty good freeze. It won't take zero degrees, but it will handle 20 to 30 degrees. It has a kind of earthy taste, kind of similar to beets, but I like beets.

Another plant I've grown to like is collards. The hardest part for me is figuring out how to cook them. All the shows I've watched pretty much agree you just throw them in a pot, throw in some meat like ham hocks or smoked turkey legs, add some salt and pepper and boil away. Mine leave something to be desired after doing this.

I normally start my spring collards in my work room and then transplant when big enough. You can eat the collards most any time from small to huge. I've figured out that on the big leaves, you cut the stem out and feed it to the cows or goats. I wash the leaves and lay them on top of each other till I have a handful. I then cut them about an inch or two long across the leaf. Once that's done, I start boiling them. The best tasting collards we've cooked, we used some ham off a bone in ham shank. They were pretty good. Before you cook the collards and chard, it's best to soak them in salt water. Worms will normally float to the top.