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dianepmt_gw

Brussel Sprouts Never Sprouted!!

15 years ago

So this was our first year with a veggie garden, my husband more experienced than me. He has had good success in the past with brussel sprouts, but this year the plants came up, lots of leaves, but no sprouts along the stalk! Is this a pollination/male-female thing? I asked here about a month ago regarding the low yield on my pattypans despite a ton of flowers, and someone suggested they were probably mostly male flowers (I had no idea), so maybe this is another sex issue with the plant?

We had a cooler and wetter summer than usual here in SE MI, and I think that is the reason some things did not do well like the squash, broccoli, we got powdery mildew on a lot of things too. Even the tomatoes have not done particularly well. We did get a great crop of swiss chard, though, and the yellow wax beans were pretty steady. Celery not too bad, either. I'm juicing it because it's a bit stringy.

Any idea what's up with the brussel sprouts?

Comments (7)

  • 15 years ago

    Hey Dianepmt; Brussel Sprouts are Heavy feeders. I don't know how you prepare your beds,but I put in blood and bone meal as well as hoofnhorn meal (earlier in the season as this isn't available to plants right after you dig it in. I also use composted seaweed as I live right next to the Pacific ocean. You can provide trace elements other ways as well.

  • 15 years ago

    hmmm.... i know my husband used some kind of volcanic rock powder for minerals, fish emulsion and bone meal, all in raised beds, along with our own compost. The bone meal was mainly in hopes of keeping the squirrels away, I think. It's really bizarre, not even a tiny hint of anything that looks like the mini cabbage heads - lol!

  • 15 years ago

    Brussels Sprouts don't need pollination, you are eating the vegetation, not seeds or fruits. They also take a long time, 3-4 months from transplant, maybe they just have not had time.

  • 15 years ago

    Ditto what farmerdilla said. Mine took forever to develop sprouts (months). Are you sure you have given them time to develop? When did you transplant them?

  • 15 years ago

    ok, I just went outside and looked again, and whaddya know, there are some microscopic little spouts developing! We did get them in kind of late, I think late May to early June was when they went in, as already sprouted plants. Well that's good news.... I like them a lot just sauteed in butter, salt and pepper... yum...until the gas attack a few hours later - lol!

    thanks a bunch for the feedback. :)

  • 15 years ago

    I'm across the state from you. My sprouts are very slow this year, also. They do grow well in cool weather, though, and I prefer to harvest them after a few frosts. Hopefully, they will size up some soon and be good size by late October. Sometimes I remove the top growing bud about now which I was told will direct more energy into growing the sprouts. I'm hesitant to do that this year since there isn't much at all to size up. Guess we better hope for a mild and long fall season.

    Are your tomatoes still alive? Late blight has been a problem around here and my tomato harvest is way down.

  • 15 years ago

    Naturegirl, my tomatoes are alive, but barely. The rest of them look like they are being eaten by any number of things. I got maybe 5 good ones, the rest of the ones that *would* have been good I think were eaten by the squirrels. The ones that are next to ripen have holes. :( Bummer. I only planted the yellow, low acid ones, and my husband was sort of responsible for the veggie garden this year - and since he doesn't eat tomatoes and doesn't think I should either (he's into the blood type diet and we're "type A" - meaning avoid tomatoes), they were a bit neglected and never properly staked, so a lot ended up drooping to the ground. I was lazy and didn't take care of it myself, I'm not really a true gardener, obviously, but next year I think I will try the little yellow cherry tomatoes, the pear shaped ones. Maybe they will ripen quicker and I can get them before the bugs and squirrels do.

    I really had no idea the Brussels sprouts were such a late fall crop, so hopefully we'll get something from those. None of the other cruciferous things did particularly well, though we did finally get some decent kale. The plants never got very big, but the bugs didn't bother those. The broccoli on the other hand got huge, but very full of holes and produced such tiny florets. Not worth the amount of space they took up.