This guide provides a comprehensive approach to growing Brussels sprouts, emphasizing their unique needs, particularly the crucial step of "topping" the plant to encourage sprout development, and advocating for fresh consumption to appreciate their true flavor.
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well hello everyone and welcome to
another absolutely beautiful day here in
the Mi Gardener Garden hopefully you all
are going to enjoy this episode this one
is going to be complete growing guide on
brussels sprouts this has been one of
our most requested growing guides for
this year and I wanted to make sure that
uh that they were ready to really show
that's why it's taken a while to get to
this uh to get to this episode because
uh really brussels sprouts are Brasa
much like broccoli and cauliflower and
cabbage and we have growing guides on
those that pertains to uh to Brussels
sprouts as well so I'm going to go very
quickly through that episode or through
that part of the the growing guide
getting it to this stage because it is a
very easy one to grow and we have lots
of videos that go more into adapting
growing brasas um but there's one
specific step to getting brussel sprouts
to grow that does not apply to to the
other ones because um they're just you
know they're unique like like all
vegetables are um but these are a little
exceptionally unique cuz it takes a one
extra step so uh what we want to do
first is talk about you know nutrients
sunlight water uh soil stuff like that
that we talk about you know in all the
growing guides because I wanted to be a
complete growing guide so these are cold
weather crop meaning that you can grow
these from Spring until the last frost
in fact it's actually advised to let
them go that long brussels sprouts are
very long-term grow they do not uh
mature very quickly we're talking 110 to
13 days for brussels sprouts solely for
the fact that you want to get the plant
built up this is a huge plant by the way
this is a massive brussel sprout plant
and the leaves on this thing are just
insane so uh look really good but um you
want to give it a long time to mature
next thing you want to do is you want to
give it between 5 and 7 hours of Sun I
find that the more sun you give it the
bigger the plant will get and the faster
it start it will start to produce
brussel sprouts that means the faster it
starts producing brussels sprouts the
larger they will get because brussel
sprouts are actually side shoots and
I'll show you what I mean uh in a second
brussel sprouts grow in between the leaf
nodes of your Brussels sprout plant so
the taller you can get it the more
brussel sprouts you can get and
obviously the sooner the Brussels
sprouts start forming the bigger they
get so if you have a really tall really
early plant you're going to get a
Bountiful Harvest of Brussels sprouts
now what I will say is that uh they are
nitrogen hogging these are some of the
most nitrogen hogging plants in the
garden you got to give them nitrogen if
you don't they're not going to produce
the nice green leaves they're not going
to grow as fast they're not going to
produce the brussel sprouts which you
are obviously eating so lots of nitrogen
we give that Trifecta plus just so we
can do everything in the garden it loves
it what we do is we also follow up
Midway through the season we don't do
this typically because Trifecta actually
feeds all season long but we like to
keep the really high potent nutrients
the fast acting ones um in the soil for
these so we'll actually come back about
midseason around mid to late uh mid to
late July and follow up with uh some
more Trifecta to get these plants
boosted again so we actually feed these
twice a year here and um and it
absolutely loves it so uh the next thing
is the soil type you want a very loose
well- draining soil but you don't want
it too loose because these are brassas
and brassas are very prone to Club root
we talk about this a lot very much in
depth in uh in the broccoli growing
guide that we've done because clubroot
plagues um both uh the uh the
cauliflower broccoli and um and cabbage
as well as the Brussels Sprouts all the
same the way to alleviate that is by
packing down the soil when you plant
your plants you want to pack down the
soil whether you're starting from seed
or from start you want to press the soil
down and I actually show you how to do
that in that grun guide so I recommend
you going and check it out but I
actually take my foot and step the soil
down if you have the right type of soil
it won't actually compact to the point
where it's harmful for the plant it will
just get rid of those air pockets which
are one of the ways that plants can uh
can dri Club rout so um there's that now
the next thing is watering we really do
not water that often here in the garden
because we use what's called core
gardening I've got a couple videos
coming up on that and core gardening is
essentially where we where we uh dig a a
trench about 8 to 10 in deep fill it
with straw rotting straw and then and
then uh pile it back up and play on top
of that and what it does is it holds in
that moisture so we don't have to water
that often if you use that method don't
think you'll have to water as often
either depending on your climate and
your location but uh I I think um we
also got rain here too we the the uh
water that the Brussels sprouts did get
is just rainwater um and we did water in
the early season as well um to kind of
charge the core of the uh of the core
gardening uh the beds and so we did
water um and I would have to say maybe
like a half a gallon a week if I was
being honest so um not that much water
at all
and uh and the plants are doing fine so
now we've talked about all those I want
to talk about um oh and spacing um
spacing is a little important just
because you don't want them to get
powdery mildew or rot and uh and the
thing is that the the plants they look
very close together here that's just
because they've grown up very close we
grow very high intensity here the high
intensity gardening method is by far the
most productive method but you have to
be careful not to space them too close
because otherwise you're going to
actually end up hurting your plants so
we've spaced ours about I'd say 10 in
apart no more than that uh yeah right
about 10 10 to 11 in I guess um to be
fair so um that's spacing now I want to
talk about the specific step here
because it's very important and it's
very crucial to getting your brussels
sprouts to form so come on in close I'll
show you what brussels sprouts are when
they're just teeny tiny and what they
look like and uh and how to get them to
start forming because there's a very
simple tip that I know all of you will
be able to benefit from that are looking
to grow your brussel sprouts come in
close check this out now general rule of
Thum is about 50 to 60 days before your
first Frost you want to do this so if
obviously you've waited later that's
fine um you might not get as large of BR
brussel sprouts but the general rule is
about 50 to 60 days and what that what
that basically does is it signals to the
plant that it is in shock and it is
going to come under Shock by leaf
removal and what you want to do you want
to come through here and just snap these
leaves off snap them off don't snap too
close to the stem because you'll break
those brussel sprouts I typically break
about a/2 in away from this from the
stem and uh essentially where the plant
naturally breaks I just bend I grab it
here and bend it and wherever it breaks
that's where uh that's where I let it
break and you want to break them all the
way up the plant leaving just the top uh
I guess the top 2 3 in of of leaves and
so you can see there's a couple little
tiny brussel sprouts there but those are
too immature to form anyways so I leave
those and this produces energy for the
plant this still allows the plant to
stay alive and so I figured I'd close by
this plant that I did about oh 30 days
ago or so and um so we were a little bit
in the late late in the game for those
plants over there but I did this uh I
did this plant about 30 days ago and you
can see that the Brussels sprouts are
about double in size so I definitely
think that uh that we're going to have
some nice brussel sprouts this year this
plant was exceptionally large as you can
see and um man I I love brussel sprouts
brazed in some red wine it's just the
way to go and uh man nothing beats the
flavor so hopefully all enjoyed
hopefully you all try brussels sprouts I
think it is something that gets a really
bad rep because is you cannot taste them
Frozen you got to taste them fresh and
you got to taste them from the garden
because nothing ever tastes fresh and is
awesome as it does right from the garden
so please do not taste it frozen from
the store if you did get taste it if you
did taste it frozen from the store I
apologize it probably tainted your idea
of them it certainly tainted mine
because uh I used to I used to be forced
to eat brussels sprouts frozen from the
uh Frozen from the store and um tasted
them a couple times and absolutely hated
it for life uh until I decided I would
just buck up and just try some fresh
ones that were served to me uh at a
restaurant because I didn't want to be
rude to my date AKA
Cindy and so I just kind of I was like
oh man so I tried them and I loved them
so you got to try them fresh you got to
try them Farm Fresh it's just the only
way to go so anyways hopefully you all
enjoyed hopefully you all learned
something new let me know in the
comments box below if you'd enjoyed this
one and also remember to check out our
other growing guides we have over 20 I
think 25 of them now like we have a ton
of growing guides go check them out onig
gardner.com under the media section you
have videos and then growing guides
you're going to check them all out there
or we have a playlist here on YouTube
that you can check out as well uh on our
main page that's just uh the uh
youtube.com/ Garder uh where you're see
essentially where you're seeing this
video on um go there we have a playlist
and uh and it's somewhere on the
homepage there and you can find it and
it will hopefully help you out grow more
food at home have more fun doing it and
grow more food successfully all right
I'll catch you later remember to gr
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