Cole Crop Reign Endeth

This is the end of the cole crop season (cole, aka 'cruciferous' vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, napa, and possibly mustard greens, among many others). They are a cool season vegetable, and it's getting hot as heck down here. Here is our last and biggest cabbage, which I'm showing as an exemplary member of the cole family:


Also pictured: tomatoes in a bag. Sorry, I wrote that stuff to send it to a friend, and I accidentally wrote right on the image, so I can't remove it :(. Anyway, after removing a few leaves that got hit hard by bugs, it's still 11.5 inches across! That's serious cabbage. Wish I liked to eat the stuff :(.

If you like cole crops, here are some good rules of thumb:

- 3 broccoli plants is enough to make a family of 4 sick of broccoli for about two months.
- Napa, aka Chinese Cabbage, is not... good. Unless you're planning on making a few hundred egg rolls and freezing them, don't plant Napa.
- Don't attempt cauliflower unless you live in a cool clime that is mostly dry and devoid of slugs. I say let the Californians grow that nasty vegetable.
- Plant them indoors 3-4 weeks ahead of time and transplant them to your garden when you're pretty sure the temps won't drop below 25 degrees. They can actually handle colder weather than 25 degrees, but it stunts them a bit.
- Exceed the recommended application of fertilizer written on the bag you purchased with wild abandon. They thrive in heavily fertilized soil (as do tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, fwiw)