Tips to Successfully Growing Kohlrabi your Home Vegetable Garden

When you mention the word kohlrabi to novice home vegetable gardeners they are not one hundred percent sure what you are talking about. That is because kohlrabi is not a very popular vegetable to grow. I am not sure why though, because this cousin to the cabbage can be added to a variety of traditional recipes to make them taste better and more importantly kohlrabi is an easy vegetable to grow.

If you live in a part of the world where you will experience cooler temperatures, and have an area that receives full sun throughout the day, then you have everything you need to grow kohlrabi in your home vegetable garden. Here are some tips to increase to productivity of your kohlrabi plants.

Kohlrabi seeds are fairly small therefore you only need to plant them about a quarter to half inch beneath the top soil. Make sure you space them out at least eight inches to give the plant plenty of room to grow and expand when the weather is cool outside.

Kohlrabi likes the soil pH level to be near neutral as possible. A 6.0 to 7.0 reading is ideal. You can obtain the pH level of your soil by purchasing a soil testing kit for less than five dollars from your local home or garden center. If you need to adjust the pH level, follow the instructions that come with the tester.

As stated earlier, kohlrabi likes cool weather, but it also grows best when it receives full sun. So make sure you pick an area of your yard (or patio for those container gardeners), where the sun will be the most abundant.

Give you kohlrabi an even and moderate watering (do not overwater) and you will be well on your way to healthy productive kohlrabi plants.

Because kohlrabi is a member of the cabbage family avoid following cabbage in a crop rotation. However, bush beans, beets, celery, cucumber, lettuce, onions, potatoes and tomatoes all make great companion plants for kohlrabi, where as pole beans make for a terrible companion plant.

Follow these tips and you will be well on your way to great tasting kohlrabi.

About the Author
Mike is the owner of Mike the Gardener Enterprises, LLC where you can sign up for their Seeds of the Month Club and receive 4 packs of vegetable, fruit and herb seeds every month.