I was introduced to kohlrabi at a very early age. My grandmother used to grow these and I would just eat them up like mad! As I grew older and my grandmother didn’t grow them as often, I began to notice that you couldn’t get these at the store. In fact, most produce clerks or home gardeners that I asked about them had no idea what I was talking about!
Turns out that kohlrabi originated in Northern Europe, but have not been commonly grown in the states–or at least not for quite a few years. These days the vegetable is increasing in popularity and you can sometimes even find it on farmers market shelves. You can get seed from many seed catalogs like Territorial Seed.
This delicious vegetable tastes a little cabbage-like to me, but is crunchy in texture a little like a tender carrot. The bulbous edible part of the plant grows as a swelling an inch or two above the ground and below the crown of leaves, kind of like a beet or turnip. Sometimes I eat kohlrabi flowers on salad, any you can with nearly any brassica (radish, broccoli, kale) flower. If you let the plants go to seed, you can easily save viable and true seed to start next year. Or if you just let the plants go to seed in your garden, they will self seed very easily. Kohlrabi are pest-resistant and cold-hardy and an excellent choice for any northern-climate gardener to try out!