this really cool plant, jeez it must be maybe ten feet tall, so you can see this is the

old school raised beds here that we’re going to be redoing into the new style which is

right on the other side here fairly shortly, but this is the last to get converted over.

And you can see a plant here, and it’s kind of leaning on this trellis in the front, and

there’s a big stalk right there it goes up and there’s some foliage here, and it

just keeps going up and up and up and up and up and up, and higher and jeez now it’s

really at the top. And my friend came and said “What are those beans up there?”

So it’s like whoa yeah these look like little bean things, I mean especially if they’re

green. When she came they were actually green, so these are still some of them are green,

but most of them are actually turning and getting dried, because it is summer time here.

So you can kind of see, I mean this is just nothing but beans up here, so what this is,

this is Brussels sprouts. And these are Brussels sprouts that actually turned and went to flower

and then now went to seed. And the seeds are contained actually in each of these little

pods, and I never knew this until I went to seed one time, so here’s a really good example,

this pod here, if you kind of see that it’s kind of hard to see here, but what you want

to do is you want to break this open, and if you break it open you see I broke it open,

and there’s some seeds inside there. So the seeds are contained inside these little

pod things, which are kind of like beans and if you catch them when they’re just forming,

they’re actually still soft enough to eat and you can still eat them, I suppose you

could eat them now but they’re very fibrous, and they contain all the seeds, so this is

a Brussels sprout plant, and you could kind of see the baby Brussels sprouts growing out

the stems here, and actually each one of these points down here, you know right there, right

there, I mean each one of these points was a Brussels sprout. And you know I don’t

know, I wasn’t able to grow Brussels sprouts like you get them at the store, because I

didn’t have this big long [inaudible ] with all these sprouts that were closed up, so

I don’t know how you do that or how they do that, because what happened to me was all

these little spots that opened up, I would pick some up and eat them, but then what would

happen is they would open up. And this is how it looks when they open up. Just looks

like this, they actually open up. This is really peculiar I mean then all these ones

open up and then basically turns into like this, and then what happens is they go to

flower and seed and they make the seeds so they can reproduce, and I’ve never gotten

the Brussels sprouts like at the store, but that’s alright, because I got Brussels sprout

leaves, so you know these leaves, once the Brussels sprouts open up are like this, and

these leaves are actually quite edible, and they’re quite good. Basically Brussels sprouts

are Brassica family, so to me this tastes like a really strong kale broccoli kind of

leaf thing, really quite good and, look I’m blessed with all these leaves, I mean this

is all Brussels sprouts, I have only two plants here. So many leaves, it’s pretty strong-tasting,

tastes like Brussels sprouts you know so here’s a Brussels sprout that I actually opened up,

it’s almost like a cabbage thing and it opened up, and here’s another part of the

plant here with all kinds of basically the seeds in the pods there, and I think we might

be pulling out this plant fairly soon to redo this bed or we might try to keep it. But yeah

you can see the little Brussels sprouts forming there once again. So now you know we could

harvest the seeds and then I could give these seeds to friends, we could replant the seeds,

and you can take the seeds and press out the oil if you wanted to. So many things you could

do, but yeah this is Brussels sprouts that have actually gone to flower and seed and

all the Brussels sprout greens that are actually really good for eating.

Alright so this is John Kohler with Growing Your Greens. And remember, you can grow your

own greens.