Two Heads Are Better Than One

Welcome to the Grow youw Self podcast. Surprising stories about the food we eat and inspiring conversations about what it really takes to live the whole and happy life we're all craving. My name's Nicole John C. Burke, and I'm the owner of Rooted Garden and Gardenary Incorporated. Incorporated, and author of the upcoming book Kitchen Garden Revival. Is it obvious? I'm kind of obsessed with the kitchen garden. Each week here on the Grow youw Self podcast, you're going to be shocked at the things you'll learn about foods you eat every single day. And you'll feel encouraged to take little steps in your own busy schedule to create a more whole and happy life for yourself. So turn up the volume and let's take a walk, go on a drive, or just hang out in the kitchen garden together. Every time you listen, I promise you'll learn something that will help you grow yourself in a new and exciting way. Sound good? I think so. Now let's dig in.

Do you know why the grocery store sells both green and purple cabbages? Well, it's clearly because two heads are better than one. I know that you just show up here every week for my awesome vegetable puns, so I just had to give you one today. You are going to love this episode. Today we are talking all about this super, super exciting and incredible vegetable, the cabbage. It's been around for thousands of years, and today I have a very special guest who is here to chat all about this fantastic vegetable, tell us the stories behind it, and even some inspiration on how we can grow it ourselves. We're talking all about cabbage today on the Grow youw Self podcast. So sit down or take a walk, or let's just hang out in the garden together and chat with my good friend Brandy. All about cabbage. Okay, everyone, this is my first interview on the Grow youw Self podcast, and I could not be more excited about my friend who is joining me. It is the one and only Brandi Bechard. She is a the owner of something so special she's going to tell you about, and she is also an important member of my Garden Coach society. So, Brandi, welcome to the Grow youw Self podcast.

Hi, Nicole.

I am so glad you're here.

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

All right, so hopefully we're doing this correctly. You know, Brandy and I only took about 20 minutes to get set up here. Technical difficulties. Okay, so tell everybody who you are, where you live, what you do, how incredible you are.

Hey, everybody. I am the owner of an edible landscaping Business located in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, representing the northern group of the Garden Coaches. My business aims to connect people to food and to the land from where it comes. So on top of providing design, installation and maintenance for edible landscapes, we also offer educational workshops, courses, classes, events and of course, coaching, which is how I met Nicole and the rest of the garden, the Kitchen garden group. So I'm just so happy to be here and to be sharing my excitement for gardening and cabbages with you guys today.

Yeah. So we. When I first set out to do this podcast, I thought it would be so fun to bring in the garden coaches one by one and talk about like vegetables that they love. And you have some of the most gorgeous photos of your gardens in Canada, full of all these delicious greens. So I was like, I need brandy to come on and tell me about these cabbages you've been growing.

Thank you. And that's actually a compliment to a lot of the other gardeners that I work with because a lot of the photos I share are of my clients gardens or of the different projects that I work on throughout Windsor. So we've got some good cabbages up here in general.

So what do you think? Do you think they grow better? Well, have you lived any other place besides Ontario?

I have. So Ontario is pretty big and. And I've lived all over Ontario and then I've also lived in British Columbia and Alberta as well. So very different climates for each of those provinces. Windsor is the most southernly city I've lived in, but I've lived in coastal, very mild Victoria, B.C. and a very cold, dry Edmonton and north in Alberta. So I've had some experience with experimenting with different climates and seeing how that plays a role in how I garden.

Very cool. Very cool. Well, so tell everybody. So how did we like, I'm trying to remember, I feel like you joined the Garden Coach Society fairly early. Was it 2018?

It was, yeah. I was actually moving from one city to another and in that transition I was thinking about starting my own edible landscaping business. And although I had the ideas already forming, I stumbled across the society which kind of helped me form that business plan in the coaching department, in the kitchen garden department. And so that's how I've come to be in the group.

So your company, is it fair to say, is almost two years old or not quite?

It is two years old. We just celebrated our second year in January.

Wow, that's so incredible. And I love the name. So what does Ground culture. Where did you come up with that name from?

Honestly, choosing a name Was very difficult. I'm not sure if you experienced that with naming your business. I basically wrote down a bunch of words that I felt described how I felt about the work I wanted to do. And some of them are adjectives, some of them are nouns, some of them are verbs. And these two words came together, and I really loved how they conveyed a message of ground meaning. You know, the obvious. We're working in the ground, Our hands in the. In the soil. We're working on the ground. As far as the environmental movement goes, like, feet on the ground. Get these troops out. We've got work to do. Yeah. And then culture just sounds very inclusive to me. And it sounds. I mean, the true definition of culture, if I can wrap this up without referring to anything, is the collective achievements in arts and. Yeah. Achievements in general of society or of a group of people. And so when I think of gardening, I think of community, I think of friends, I think of neighbors, I think of farmers markets. And the people who put those into motion form a culture around growing food. It's not just about the food itself, but it's about the beautiful things we do with it. And the classes and the workshops and the farm shares and the recipes and the culinary aspect. There's just a whole culture surrounding that. So that's how those two words come together and lead my. My mission statement.

I love it. That is deep, girl. That is good stuff. I love it. I. I remember when we were first. My husband and I were trying to get a group of people together when we were first married, and we had, like, one child. We're just trying to build community. And we were, like, had a couple people over and said, do you guys want to, like, hang out once a week or whatever? And this guy who is a professor at uva, he was like, you know, we need to eat together, like, if we're gonna hang out. Like, there needs to be food. And he was like, things like community and growing together happens around food, and that has stuck with me so much. Like, I found that again and again, like, food is such a unifying force, right?

Oh, absolutely. It transcends cultures and time.

Yeah, I love it. Well, ground culture forever. I'm so proud of the work that you're doing, and we'll talk about how people can find you. But first, let's talk about cabbage.

Yes.

Yeah. So I can't wait to dig into this. I have to be honest. Cabbage is not. So I. You know, most of my gardening was in Houston, and the temperatures there are pretty tough for growing cabbage because we don't have a long, cold season. Yeah. So I tried again and again and one more time, and I had cabbage plants. But, like, the large, thick, like, great, strong cabbage head was hard for me to. To happen there. So I'm excited that I might be able to do that here in Chicago, but I you to guide me, so pressure's on. I know, girl. So let's start talking about cabbage. Tell me what you know about the history of the vegetable.

All right. So I did draw on my researching skills for this because I thought I knew what the history of the cultivation was, but I surprised myself. So, honestly, the history of cabbage is widely varied. It shows up in stories and traditions from all over the world, including ancient Rome, China, Greece, Egypt. The domestic cabbages that we're used to here in the west today resemble their wild ancient predecessors from Europe, which had thick leaves which retained water that allowed them to grow in colder places that receives less rainfall. So that's why we're used to those very waxy, thick leaves. Still today, cabbages prefer to be grown in cooler temperatures, so that's something that they've carried through with the different cultivars and breeding species to get the characteristics that we still have today.

Wow. So I read that, and I actually experienced this. You know, I lived in China for two years, and I read that the two places where it's grown the most is China and Russia. Yeah. And that made so much sense to me because literally, like, we. So one of our favorite dishes in China was Hugo, and it's like this. It's literally hot pot is what we said in English. And it would just be these. This big, big bowl of soup, like, cooked in the middle of everyone. And literally, they would just. I mean, just tons of cabbages get tossed in that soup and cooked down, and then you, like, dip it out with your chopsticks and eat it over rice.

Sounds delicious. You're gonna need to link the recipe.

Oh, my God, I wish I knew how to do Hoagoa. Like, that I ate. Yeah. But that. Anyway, so when I read that that China was one of the biggest producers of cabbage, I was like, oh, that totally makes sense, because we ate it all the time there. Okay, so what I hear from you is, like, it started in other places, maybe like China or Russia or in the. Like, in Greece. And then. Do you know, were you able to find, like, when it came to North America.

Yes. The first cabbages in America were brought by the French explorer for Jacques Cartier, which we've learned a lot about in our Canadian history classes. But the. The vegetable became necessary on the long ocean journeys for its high vitamin C content, which prevented scurvy.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. There's not a lot of fresh vegetables on these ships, so they have to be able to bring some vegetables along that are good for storage but also have a high vitamin C content to combat that. So cabbages fit the bill. Ship doctors even use sauerkraut, which is cabbage preserved in brine, to treat wounds of sailors and prevent gangrene.

Crazy.

I know. So that's. That's how it's spread around the world. It's a good, good traveling vegetable, apparently.

And it does hold up, right? Like, have you experienced that? Like, I'll sometimes have it in the back of my fridge, and it's, like, there, and it's still there, and then, like, you know, three or four weeks later.

Absolutely. Even after you cut into it? I just put a beeswax wrap over it over the cut part, and it's good for so long.

It's amazing. You guys have to check out. Brandi has. I think you even do these as workshops. Right. She makes these beeswax wraps instead of using plastics. Yeah. It's so great. I love it.

It's a great way to preserve veggies from the garden.

Okay, cool. So, okay, so cabbage stores. Well, it's got. I didn't realize it had vitamin C. And so I had heard with the scurvy situation, they use citrus. But it makes so much more sense that they could bring cabbage along, because that seems way more good for like. Like that. You could actually get cabbage in a lot of more places than you'd be able to get citrus.

Absolutely. They're being put on the ships, right, From.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so, okay, so that was back then. Cartier brought the cabbage, and then, like, what. What's going on now? Like, where is most of our cabbage? You're, you know, outside of the US but still in the same continent. Do you. Cabbages that we are buying in the US or in Canada, where are those being grown?

Yeah. So it's actually not surprising that although cabbage has gone. Grown throughout the U.S. 78% of the nation's total cabbage is produced in five states. California, Wisconsin, New York, Florida, and Texas.

What?

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Florida. Wait, you don't. You don't drive Florida to work and just drive by fields of cabbage blowing the wind in Florida.

That's crazy. So I guess they do it in Florida in the winter.

Yes. And likely. Yes, likely in the wintertime. And I don't even to be honest, I don't know how they grow it in Florida, but I'm sure there's varieties that are more accepting of hotter temperatures. Yeah, just like there's lots of cold, cold resistant varieties.

There's.

There's probably ones that are very heat tolerant as well.

Yeah. Okay, so how many percentage did you say? 78.

78?

Yeah.

78% of the nation's total cabbage is grown in those five states.

Okay. I can definitely see Wisconsin because, like, now I'm super close to Wisconsin, and I could totally picture, like, starting probably soon. Right. Those cabbages would be in the ground and then they'd grow through, say, maybe.

Yep. We're starting ours next week.

Oh, wow. Okay. So starting and then grow through May or June, and then I guess I can picture, like, it makes sense, right, that so many of our greens are grown in California. Like, they've got that mild, kind of coolish temperature, and so they can just keep those greens going almost year round there. Yeah. Okay, so that's a lot of shipping if we don't live in one of those five states. Yeah. So New York. I guess that makes sense, right? Like, upstate New York would be where they'd be growing the cabbage there.

Yeah, I would think so.

Okay, interesting. So we are covering this a lot on the podcast. Just the fact that so much of our food is grown in so few places, so it's really narrowed down and changed the way that our food gets to us and also altered the way that our food tastes. Right. So even though cabbage stores really well ob as we talked about in the back of my fridge for a month. But have you tasted the difference? So you've actually gotten to harvest and pull a cabbage just from the garden. How would you describe the change or the difference from something that you say, buy from the store during December or November versus one that you pull from the garden? Besides the fact that they've got cabbage loopers in them? Just joking.

Whose hashtag? Cabbage. Just joking. Just joking. Speaking from experience, the crunchiness, just the freshness. And remember how I was talking about the native cultivars, the wild cultivars of cabbage, how they had those thick leaves that retain water and allow them to grow in colder places? Well, that definitely comes through. When you grow your own cabbage, it's juicy when you cut it, you can hear the crack of the knife cutting through the different layers, and the texture is just crunchy and juicy and delicious and fresh. At the grocery store, I've also had crunchy and delicious cabbage, but I've Also had soft, kind of meh, lifeless cabbage that was all the same texture, just, I would say soft. And also the taste. You know, nothing beats garden grown produce in any vegetable realm. But I think cabbage is definitely a shiner when it comes to growing your own. It just. It just tastes so much better.

Yeah. Okay. So crunchy. I do love crunchy. Like, that's one of the things I talk about in my salad school course is like, my favorite way to make salad is homegrown because you can mix and match all these different textures. And to me, it's like, okay, I finally don't need a ton of dressing to swallow this, you know, because of the texture almost adds the flavor. Right. So that's cool. Okay. So speaking of growing, do you have some tips for us on how to actually make that kind of magic happen in our own kitchen garden?

Totally. So, I mean, I'm growing in Zone 7A, but I know we like to talk about more temperature averages and whatnot. But in generally speaking, cabbages are best grown in the spring, like we've touched on, so that we can count the days that they need to reach maturity and plant backwards from there so that you're harvesting before the heat of the summer.

Okay.

You can also do the same thing in the fall after the heat has passed. Growing in the middle of the summer for us would be, you know, July, August. You don't want to have your cabbages reaching maturity then because they'll bolt. I'm sure many of the listeners know that bolting means that the cabbage goes to flower and then to seed. And that's not ideal when you're going to eat the plant that's going to seed because it causes an unpleasant bitterness and a tough texture.

Yeah.

So, yeah, definitely stick to growing cabbage in the spring or in the fall.

Okay, so speaking of days to maturity, so we're looking at like 90 plus, is that right?

Honestly, each variety is different. I've had ones that are over 100 days.

Yeah.

And ones that can be shorter. Especially there's. There's different kinds of cabbages, right? Napa.

Yeah.

It doesn't create that tight ball head that a Danish ball head cabbage would. Would require. So if you're just going for the leafy cabbage head, then it would probably take less days to maturity than the ones that you need to wait for them to form that tight, compact ball.

Okay. Yeah. So Napa is going to be shorter, and then that tight ball is going to be the longest.

Yeah. They can range from like 80 days to 180 days from seed to maturity.

So that's a year to get your cabbage. All right, so in that. So let's say 180 days, that's going to be. You're going to need to start that indoors, correct?

Yes. In my part of the world, absolutely. We, we don't start seeds until February indoors and then, well, certain ones. But if you're planting directly in the garden, which you can do in the fall, you would probably have to plant them in the summer and give them some sort of shade protection so that when they germinate, the delicate seedlings finding that cool climate that they prefer.

Yeah. Okay, so get them started indoors or you could directly put them in the garden and then. And then what? So let's say I have this nice little cabbage seedling that I've grown indoors. What, what's the next step?

Cabbages love to be transplanted in soil that is rich in organic matter, just like so many other veggies. Adding compost to your soil is a really good idea to feed. Feed your soil, which will then in turn feed your plants. So soil is a big one. Make sure you're planting your cabbage into well drained, compost rich soil.

So my experience with cabbages, now I would like to grow Napa cabbages because that's actually the kind of cabbage we had in China a lot. And I love making like fried rice with that and stuff. But so let's say I wanted, though, or my experience with cabbages, like they, I like to say they're long. What do I say? Large and long. Like they take up a lot of space in the garden and then they also take a lot of time. So a lot of times I'll steer, say a new gardener away from doing something like a cabbage or broccoli or cauliflower because of that. Because especially if they have like a smaller box or, or they're new to it. Like, there's just so much that can go wrong because you're waiting, you know, for such a long period and they need so much space. So when you grow yours though, are you growing a bunch of them and are you growing them in a raised bed or are you growing them more like in a row garden?

So I've done it all. Now that I think back on it, I've grown cabbages in a farm setting. So in that case, it's all about how can I be the most productive with this space and efficient and efficiency in a small scale farming sense means planting a whole row of cabbages and then also succession. Planting them so you have them maturing at different times, so you have a small trickle in of cabbages instead of a truckload all at once.

Yeah.

But for sure I've planted them right in the ground in rows. And that's nice because I've actually covered them with a row cover to exclude pests, which we can talk about pests later. But that's, that's nice and convenient when they're all grouped together. That being said, if you're growing cabbage at home, most people don't have 100 foot rows to grow cabbage in. And I've grown them right at home in my raised beds. And in those situations I just plant maybe three or four, because think of how many cabbages you actually eat throughout the season. I wouldn't want as many cabbages as I do heads of lettuce because I don't eat cabbage at every meal.

Yeah, right.

And they store so long, so you really don't need that many. So I've planted three or four cabbages with the rest of my brassicas in my raised bed. And they look beautiful. They're gorgeous. They have this blue teal color or purple or lime green and their leaves are quite showy and they look really nice in a raised garden bed.

Yeah. And you could do like some green onions in between or maybe even some little leafy greens or little red lettuces or something. Right. Like to. Maybe you could even get a harvest or two in those cracks and places around the cabbages as the cabbages are growing. Have you ever done anything like that?

Yeah, you can maximize the space. I've even planted radishes amongst my cabbages that double as a companion plant because radishes deter the pests that like to munch on the cabbage leaves. So they're actually forming a beneficial relationship there.

Oh, that's perfect. Yeah. So we talk about that in the Garden Coach Society. And in my book, I talk about this idea of intensive planting. So you can have these large and long plants sitting there and doing their thing, but that doesn't mean that's the only thing you've got going in your kitchen garden. You can have these shorter pieces like Brandy's talking about, like have radishes or, you know, leafy greens around them. And there you still get to enjoy and benefit from the garden even while you wait, even if you're waiting 180 days. Crazy. Okay, so let's, let's go ahead and jump in. We're going to do a food fight in just a second. But tell me your thoughts. About pests. So what are going to be the biggest troubles and difficulties that someone would have as they're trying to learn to grow their own cabbage?

So I know that you are a huge advocate for are using defense as your tool against pests rather than offense.

Right.

You want to be making sure that your garden is healthy enough to fight pests without having to treat it with a bunch of nasty chemicals. So the pests that we're going to encounter with cabbages can range from loopers, cabbage moth, to even aphids. We had an aphid infestation in our Napa bed last year, and that was quite devastating because we, we weren't really defensive about it. We weren't really paying attention to the ecosystem as a whole. So let me explain. Using attracting predatory insects, ladybugs, for example, to your cabbage patch, would help prey on those pesky garden bugs that you're going to see. So by planting pollinator plants around your garden, you're actually attracting beneficial insects that prey on the ones you don't want, right?

Yeah.

Also, you want to keep your soil really healthy.

We.

I always practice crop rotation, whether I'm farming or gardening at home. I rotate my crops year after year, which helps replenish the soil with the nutrients it needs to feed your plants so that they become resilient against pests and disease. They have the strength to fight them off. And like, like you always say, Nicole, always monitor and observe your garden. Catching pests early in the stage can prevent an infestation. Like we had in our Napa bed. If we were monitoring that on a, on a daily basis, I might have saw the eggs or I might have saw a few and they would have been at a manageable stage if should we had. Had we observed it. So definitely just spending a little bit of time in the garden every day cleaning up those cabbage leaves that are looking yellow or brown or chewed away by pests. Clear them out so they. You're not providing a nice habitat for them to stay in. And yeah, I would say plant lots of diversity within your garden. If you have cabbage after cabbage after cabbage and a pest comes in, it's going to have a heyday. But if you plant cabbage, then a radish, then some lettuce, you're going to confuse those pests and they just might go away.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. We were just this week, I was in my kitchen garden academy talking with students and they were asking about pests and I compared. It was just, you know how you like, you'll have A teaching moment as a coach, and you're like, oh, that was really good. I was saying, you know, it's kind of like your. Your kids where. Or like, you're trying to help, say, a friend with a challenge that they have. And what you. What you want to do, like, your instinct is just to, like, remove the problem, you know, like, let's say you're. You have a friend being bullied or a kid that's being bullied, and you just want to go, like, punch the bully.

Right?

Like, that's our instinct, is we want to just go attack the bully. But really the better thing to do is to realize, like, that person has the ability to deal with their issue. You just want to take away all the stresses on that person that you can and remind them of how strong and great they are, and then they go handle it. Right. And that's basically my philosophy, I think yours, too, in the garden, right? It's like, the plants know how to fight the bullies. The plants are like, have it in their DNA to know how to survive as a species and to thrive. And so our job is basically remove whatever stresses we can from their situation, like, make it as easy, don't ask much of them during their stressful time when they're in a fight, and then give them all the support we can. Like, here's some compost. Here's some great sunshine. Here's some flowers next to you. Here's some ladybugs. And it's like, all right, I know you can handle this. I'm not going to come and punch the bully for you. I'm just going to let you know, like, I'm taking all the stress away. I'm not asking anything of you. Now you go fight, girl.

Talk about deep. What a great metaphor for life.

I know, right? Well, I was like, oh, I need to remind myself of that when I'm trying to be a better mom.

I love it.

Yeah.

But that's something I'm totally going to use in my coaching going forward.

I think metaphors help so much. I think sometimes we feel overwhelmed. And you see all those commercials, like, one of my least favorite commercials in the world. I don't even remember what brand it is, but it's this guy, like, acting like he's, like, in a Wild west movie shooting weeds, like, you know, with whatever horrible killer. Yes. And it's, like, set up like it's man versus versus plants, you know, or man versus. Yeah. I think so many times you just have to be reminded, like, these are plants. Like, they want to live. They want. They know what to do. And oftentimes we're like, we. We can help. All we have to do is basically just say, hey, you got this. I'm here to support you, and I'm going to away as many stresses, you know, as I can for you while you. While you do your thing.

So absolutely. The presence of pests and weeds are not the presence of problems. It's just showing us that something is out of balance. It's not that they're not meant to be there. They're just not meant to be there in that quantity. And something's out of balance, and we can fix that, not fight it.

Right? Yeah. I love that. I love that philosophy. So this reminds me so much. Did you see Biggest Little Farm? Isn't that it's just such a perfect picture of that truth? Right? Like, they do it again and again and again.

Absolutely. Less their lesson. And I'm sure those lessons never stopped. Even though they made a beautiful documentary out of it. I'm sure they still face struggles and lessons every day. But I just love how they struck that balance with humans, cultivating the land with nature.

Yeah, it was awesome. So if you guys haven't seen it yet, you've got to go check out the Biggest Little Farm. They are Apricot lane farms on Instagram. Just total inspirations in this area. Okay, so we are going to do a food fight between kohlrabi and cabbage. So I'll name what's in one cup of kohlrabi, and you'll name what's in one cup of cabbage, and we'll decide who wins.

Okay, I need, like, a food fight bell to ring.

I know. I gotta get. I gotta get an official here.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

In this corner, kohlrabi. In that corner, cabbage. Okay, 36 calories. I mean, that is so. That's so. Yeah. I mean, you guys, you're gonna have to really count your calories if you're eating kohlrabi. So how many. How many calories for one cup of cabbage?

We've got 22.

Okay, 22. All right, you win. So if you guys are counting calories, you're going to want cabbage instead of kohlrabi. How about protein? I've got two grams.

Ooh, we've got half of that chiming in at just one.

Oh, so kohlrabi is on top. If you want protein, I mean, a whopping two grams. It's impressive. All right, now I'm pretty excited about this one vitamin C I have got. Well, how much do you have?

Give you 54% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C. That's pretty impressive.

54. So that's like half of your vitamin C for the whole day is in one cup of cabbage. That's actually not that much cabbage. Right. But get ready for this. Get ready for this. 93%.

What?

Yes. Kohlrabi is the victor in the vitamin C realm. So you guys don't even have to eat an orange. You could just have kohlrabi. I know, right?

How about call up Jacques Cartier?

You should have been bringing Kohlrabi on that ship. Okay, how about. How about what was I asking you? Folate. That's like, an important one for women, right? So what. What about. What do you got for folate?

Cabbage has 10% of the recommended daily intake of folate in one cup.

Okay. All right, you beat me there. So folate, we just have 5% in kohlrabi. So cabbage so far is on top in terms of the calorie counters and the folate, but we're on top for vitamin C and protein. So let's talk about vitamin B6. I've got 12% of my daily value needs in one cup for kohlrabi.

Oh, he's got six cabbages. Got half of that.

Man, I keep beating you by, like, twice.

I know. It's impressive.

It's a hybrid. That's why. Right. Like, I guess we. We made it pretty perfect. All right, let's see if I got anything else. I see you have a pretty high vitamin K count. What is yours?

Vitamin K? Cabbage is going to give you 85% of your recommended daily intake.

Wow. I don't even have that on my list, so I don't think the number is Robbie. So we'll give that point to cabbage, and then let's see what else we can do. How about some of these numbers? I don't have for both of my numbers, but how about magnesium?

Cabbage is going to give you 3% of your daily intake.

Okay. And magnesium, that's, like, an important thing, right? Do you know, I feel like this came up recently that, like, it's.

It's.

You need to have magnesium. I just read that I need to look.

Absolutely. It's. Magnesium is good for people with headaches. And surprisingly, I read that people used to put leaves of cabbage on their head to cure headaches. So that doesn't come through with the nutritional profile that we're reading, but.

Crazy. So you and me for the promo for this podcast, we're going to take pictures of cabbages on our head.

Oh, I'm sure I have some in the top photo. Yeah. Okay.

Also okay. For kohlrabi, the magnesium is 6%. So, yeah, we beat you by twice. Again, pretty impressive.

So that's good for nutrition. What about, like, how do you use kohlrabi?

Yeah, great question. So kohlrabi is interesting because people think of it as a root crop because it kind of looks like it, right? Because the big bulb at the bottom, but that actually grows above the ground. And I, you know, learning that basically the leaves are super great to use. You can like, basically the entire thing can be eaten. So that bulb, the stems and the leaves. But oftentimes if you're not growing your own, you miss the leaf part. You just get that, like, it's almost like a mini cabbage. Right. Like, it kind of is bunched up like that. So basically the ways to use it are kind of similar. The way you use cabbage, so you can chop it up like a coleslaw or you could, you know, stir fry it just like you would cabbage, say, in like a fried rice or something. And then they say you could also use it in place of like, where you'd use broccoli stems or broccoli, because it has similar flavor profile.

Yeah.

Have you tasted it?

Yeah. We grew kohlrabi for our Farm Share members last year. We had purple kohlrabi and green kohlrabi and. And that was by far the most confusing vegetables for our Farm Share members. So I found myself sending them recipes and trying to inspire them. Or I'd slice one right open at the Farm Share pick up so people could taste it and just get on board with adventuring outside of their. Their comfort zone as far as cooking with vegetables. Go and give it a whirl because I really like it. It's my grandparents favorite vegetable. So I'm. I'm chuckling when you say it's like an Instagram star right now because my grandparents have been eating this for decades and they just love it raw.

Oh, well, they're so hip. You have the hippest grandparents ever. I have to meet them. Okay, so. So who do you think wins? I would say kohlrabi. Even though it's weird, it's probably easier to grow. Like it's going to be a shorter period in the garden. Is that right? Has that been your experience?

Yeah. And it takes up less space and it, it sounds like it has a great nutritional profile. It's going to Give you proteins. Got a lot of vitamins packed in there and it's, it's versatile. Like you said, you can use the bulb, which will be like the consistency of a broccoli stem, but you can also use the leaves. Would kind of replace cabbage.

More cabbage. All right, so who do you think is the winner? What do you think? Ding, ding, ding. Kohlrabi or cabbage? Who is the winner of the food fight?

Oh, that's. Is it up to me to decide? I mean, I still love cabbage. It's so versatile. But maybe kohlrabi is my next favorite vegetable.

I think I'm gonna go for more kohlrabi this year just based on this food fight, because I'm just. I really want to count my calories this year and I want 14 lessons.

Yeah, right, okay.

No, really, it's more about the timing for me actually in the space because I have small kitchen gardens. So the idea that I could get very similar nutritional content, a little bit sweeter, leaves the crunch, but kind of basically do the same kind of good to my body, that kind of excites me.

Right on. I see the kohlrabbies you grow this year.

I'm going to do it all for the gram, you know.

The gram and the calories.

Brandi, this has been so much fun. So we are actually in the middle of opening up Garden Coach Society. So when I first started, I called it Kitchen Garden Coach Society, but it's literally people like you who inspired me to change the name to just simply Garden Coach Society. Because you're doing so many things. You have a farm share, you're doing all kinds of eco friendly classes like your zero waste stuff. And then obviously you're also doing one on one garden coaching and installing some of the most beautiful kitchen gardens. So, yeah, it's now Garden Coach Society. How do you feel about that? I love it.

It's so inclusive. It makes me feel like being part of this course isn't just a segment of my business anymore. It's encompasses the more permaculture based work that I do as well as the kitchen gardening that I do with the raised beds and everything in between. Way to go. Yay.

Well, I. Yeah, literally was people like you and Jen with northbound bloom Katrina in New Zealand, who's doing so much zero waste work. I thought, you know, I. Kitchen gardens are obviously my thing. But what I realized is this concept of creating a system based on our own experience as gardeners and then turning it into something that we can teach and train and give to other People to grow their confidence in the garden is so much bigger than kitchen gardens. So thank you for jumping in and being one of the first gardeners to join me two years ago. Like that bet that you took to join me means so much. So I can't thank you. Thank you enough for doing that.

Oh, of course. It's been a pleasure to be a part of this group and so valuable, and I'm so happy to see how Gardenary is evolving, just like our skills do right in the garden.

Yeah, it's fun. Well, we are in the middle of the launch, so if you're listening to this and you're in, It's. It's like March 2020. You're welcome to come and join us in the Garden Coach Society. Me and Brandy and more than a hundred other amazing gardeners around North America and even across the world now in New Zealand. But our vision is to do what we say, just take our passions like Brandy has with hers in Canada and me first in Houston and now in Chicago, and to help other people to make gardening an everyday, ordinary part of our lives again. And so we'd love to have you join us. You can go to gardenary.comchallenge to find out more or just hang out on gardenary.com and you'll learn all about garden coaching. Brandi, tell us where we can find out more about you and the incredible ground Culture Gardens.

So we are on Facebook as Ground Culture Gardens and Instagram Ground Culture Gardens Gardens. And we also have a website, ww.groundculture.ca and between those channels, we're posting workshops, events, our services, and just helpful info in general. We have quite the community here locally that loves to share some of their tips and tricks for gardening. And I try and make it as inclusive as possible. So, yeah, we'd love for you to follow us along as well. And anybody who's interested in joining the Garden Coach Society, I just want to open that option up to you to contact me and ask about my personal experience and just explain how valuable it is. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Oh, that's awesome. I didn't say that, guys. So just so you know, hopefully she'll say, good stuff. No, I'm just joking. Thank you so much. You guys have to check her out. She's an inspiration. Her photos are gorgeous. Her cabbages are amazing. I love the movement that you're growing in Windsor and Canada. And I know you're going to impact people all over because just your perspective on life, just describing ground Culture is something that is, like. It literally can pervade our society. So I think it's so great the work that you're doing, and I'm just so. I'm so, so glad that we're on this journey together. And I can't thank you enough for being my guinea pig and my first interview. What are you, my interviewee? I always get the E and the ER part wrong. I'm the er. You're the E. So thanks for being. It was super fun. So you guys go check her out. Ground culture Ca.

Groundculture Ca or ground culture gardens on Instagram. Gardens.

Yeah. Okay. There's lots of dots. Ground culture gardens, her stories on Instagram. They're my favorite. I always follow along. I love them so much. Thank you so much for joining me, Brandi. I really appreciate it. All right, you guys, you can learn more about cabbage and our food fight and all the things you need to know about growing it@gardenary.com podcast. You can get the notes on today's episode. Make sure you go check out Brandi and learn more about her at her website and we'll have notes to connect you with her on the show. Notes as well. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. If you have any questions or thoughts, please let us know. Sorry, had to just end with that one. I've got a lot of emotional cabbage with me. You guys have a great week, and I'll see you next.

Sam.