Should I only harvest the parts that are showing flowers, or should I just harvest them all, regardless of the extent of the bud formation? Also, exactly how do I harvest? Do I pick off leaves or just cut off the plant at the bottom of the stalk? Can I expect to get more growth this season? Sorry for all the questions, but I really want to do it the right way from the get-go. Cut the plants at the ground level, or where the stem begins to get thick and toughen.
If you harvest correctly, and the weather remains cool, you can expect a second and possibly third cutting from each plant.
Dear Bonjoey: Sounds like you're having the same trouble I had. If your New Jersey spring was as cold as my Long Island spring, the raab plants got confused and began to flower set seed before the plants had a chance to grow.
When they begin flowering when only inches high they are goners. I pulled mine out and replaced them with other things. Meanwhile I started some new seed for later planting. Dear Violet: Ordinarily, when my raab plants reach full growth feet high that's when the florets begin forming, all over the plant. I pick them just before they begin to open up, picking daily until the florets become too small to bother with. This can go on for two to three weeks until the plants run out of gas and I replace them with new plants waiting in the wings.
You suggest cutting them back at their bases. I'm here to learn. Please explain further. What to do with "too much" room. POLL: How often do you cook at home? POLL: What are you planning to grow this summer? Two suggestions are above, the way you do it and cutting from the base.
It's up to you which method you choose. I still don't get it, Violet. What happens when you cut the plant at the base? Does it start a whole new plant at the base line, or does it just send out new shoots with florets at the tips? Hi there, I am a bit confused too. Do we cut the entire plant, and does another plant grow back?
Is the entire plant eatable? Ligardener, Would you like to share it with me what kind of broccoli raab you grow, how to prepare the soil, how far to space the seed and when is the best time to sow.
Dear luong, I'm late with my reply because I hadn't visited this site since my last posting. I hope that this reaches you. I start my raab in small containers, cell packs when I expect to use the plants early, and 4-inch pots when I expect to nurse them along for awhile.
I don't select any particular type of raab, but settle for whatever is in stock at the nursery. When the plants grow large and heavy I stake them to keep them upright. I plant them in early spring and again when the plants run out of steam, in early summer. It has already opened yellow blossoms! So it is no good? No part of it is now edible? Can I let it go to seed and use the seeds? My daughter planted it in my raised planters and didn't really now what it was supposed to look like or exactly what it was!
When the flowers open, the "broccoli" part flowers gets bitter. It is still edible as are the leaves- which are bitter too. To eliminate the bitterness at least for the flowers , boil it for five minutes. Then put it in ice water for a few minutes.
Finally, drain well. This is called bleaching. Right now I still have my rapini plants in the ground. Just scoot your mulch to the side, add some compost, and then push your mulch back to its former position. This cultivar can be grown for crops in spring, fall, or winter, and grows to be 12 to 14 inches tall. Florets are large, measuring three to four inches wide. This high-yielding cultivar has small blue-green leaves and large buds.
Rather than producing a central head, it sends out many side shoots. Plants reach 18 to 24 inches tall. To ensure that your crop of buds and leafy greens is abundant, prevent damage from pests and disease before it happens. Broccoli rabe will tempt the palates of a variety of critters if they find their way to your veggie patch, particularly snails and slugs. To protect your garden from these gastropods, make sure to read our article on the best natural methods of deterring slugs and snails.
Your patch of cime di rape will be just as appealing to your insect neighbors as it is to you. Here are some of the most common culprits likely to nibble on your crop:. Like other cole crops, broccoli rabe attracts cabbage loopers. As these small green caterpillars feast on your plants, they will leave noticeable, irregularly-shaped holes in the foliage.
One method of deterring these pests is to use floating row covers to protect your crop. However, a savvy gardener will want to have many other tricks up their sleeve to fight these pests. Read more about controlling cabbage loopers in our article. Flea beetles also enjoy feasting on rapini leaves.
Before you kill any other tiny garden beetles thinking they are flea beetles, however, make sure you have correctly identified them — there are some beneficial insects , such as spider mite destroyers, which can be mistaken for these pests. In my own garden, I ignore the minimal damage caused by these pests, and instead focus on attracting natural flea beetle enemies such as braconid wasps, which love the umbel-shaped flowers of cilantro , dill , and yarrow.
You can learn more about managing flea beetles in our article. Leaf miners will also attack your rapini, leaving their distinctive maze-like marks in the leaves. To encourage parasitic wasps, grow plants they like nearby.
In addition to cilantro and dill, cosmos is another beneficial wasp favorite. According to Associate Professor Judy K. Brown and colleagues at the University of Arizona , broccoli rabe plants usually recover from leaf miner infestations. Remove any damaged foliage and give your plants a chance to recover before resorting to pesticides, which are harmful to beneficial insects, your partners in your quest to grow healthy, homegrown food.
Learn more about some of the common diseases that affect rapini:. Alternaria leaf spot is a fungal disease. These lesions are often surrounded by yellow halos. To prevent your plants from becoming host to these fungi, be sure to provide adequate spacing between plants, encouraging good air circulation. Also, rather than watering your crop with a sprinkler, water close to the surface of the soil instead.
Treatment of this disease is much the same in rapini as it is in its close relative, the turnip. To learn more, read our article on identifying and treating Alternaria leaf spot on turnips. Damping off is caused by a soilborne pathogen, and an infection can lead young seedlings to suddenly wither and die.
Cool, wet conditions and poorly draining soil put seedlings at risk for this disease. Damping off is usually fatal to young seedlings, so the best recourse is preventing it from occurring in the first place. To learn more about preventing this disease, read our article about damping off. Downy mildew is a disease caused by fungus-like organisms called water molds oomycetes. It is a risk to raab when the weather is cool and humid. Affected plants have yellow lesions on leaf tops, and a white or gray fungus-like growth on the undersides of leaves.
Lesions eventually become brown, and the entire leaf can become papery and fall off the plant. To prevent this disease, water at the soil level with a watering wand or via drip irrigation rather than with an overhead sprinkler.
As a member of the cabbage family, rapini is susceptible to this and other diseases that tend to plague these plants. To learn more, read our article about treating downy mildew and other cabbage family diseases. Your rapini will be ready for its first harvest about six to eight weeks after sowing, depending on your selected variety.
However, rather than sticking strictly to the calendar, keep an eye on the buds of your raab plants and make your harvest before they open. And if possible, plan your rapini harvest for the morning, which is the time of day when the foliage will be at its freshest. A pair of scissors or garden snips will be helpful here — just make sure they are clean, to reduce the risk of spreading diseases.
This is actually the wrong question: Both turnips and broccoli are part of the Brassica genus: Rabe is a Brassica rapa, variety ruvo also called Brassica rapa L , according to Arizona State University , while turnips are Brassica rapa, variety rapa.
The broccoli rabe plant resembles a mustard plant more than it does its namesake broccoli. Its leaves are somewhat blue-green, and it has small, broccoli-like buds on several thin stalks. All parts of the plant are edible: the leafy greens, the flower buds and the stems.
Broccoli rabe varieties generally fall into two categories: fall or spring cultivars. The fall varieties are grown for fall harvest, and they are more heat-tolerant than the spring varieties.
According to Victory Seeds , these broccoli rabe plants grow 30" high by harvest time, tall for rabe plants. The blue-green leaves are decorated by florets that are somewhat larger than other rabe varieties.
Broccoli rabe is a cool-season crop, planted to mature in cool weather. Depending on your location, plant broccoli rabe in either the winter or early spring for a spring harvest or in late summer or fall for an early winter harvest. You can direct-seed this plant into the garden if a freeze it not expected, or purchase seedlings and transplant them. Young plants can resist a frost, but not a hard freeze. Planting seeds too late in the spring will likely result in plants that go to seed too quickly and taste bitter.
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