We had a bang up season for our Brussels sprouts this year! One of the best in recent memory!
We talk about the tips and tricks we use to get Brussels sprouts to fully sprout in a far northern garden. Plant manipulation is an essential technique to use in northern climates and as you can see, it produces results! We were really happy with our overall harvest this season, supplying us plenty to give away to other non-growers!
What’s really inspiring, though, is just how tasty our sprouts were this year. We’ve had a record year of rain this season with total seasonal rainfall coming within the top three “rainiest” summers since records have been kept. We might even cross our all time record this year, it could possibly be the rainiest season ever measured!
While we’ve shared that these conditions have certainly decimated some of our crops, it’s also immensely improved many others. Across several of the veggies that we grow every season, we’ve noticed that this year’s harvests have been exceptionally tasty. This is very much in the realm of the “terroir” of our environment, seasonal difference can very much influence taste.
In all our years of growing, we can’t really say that we’ve observed this same level of “taste difference” from one season to another. While there’s always perhaps some variability, this year it has been profound with some of our crops. That’s coming from people who generally grow for taste, preferring our home grown veggies over commercially grown ten times out of ten.
But, this does go to show that if you live in a rainy area, there are some crops that you can lean into and get great results. We talk about this a fair bit in the early season, but it’s better to grow “with your climate” than it is to grow against it. There’s really not one “perfect” growing environment, more that the crops you grow are best tailored to the environment you grow in. From the subarctic, to the wet coastal cities and all the way to the deserts and tropical climates, different strategies and plants are the ultimate keys to success.
Learning these things is best done by experimentation, in our opinion. Sure, you can get advice from books, websites or even channels like us, but it’s the experimentation that will solidify things for you.
We know a lot of you have had more rain this season than you know what to do with. Have any of you all noticed this same thing?
