If you enter a fine dining establishment in the spring- one specializing in local organic vegetables, you are likely to hear something like this from your server. "Our special is the kale broccoli raab on a bed of fresh cooked pasta."
Raab is a special treat that northwest gardens produce February through May, but only if you do some planning now, or get lazy this summer.
It's likely you're eating the first leaves of spring planted kale already. And while this year’s crops of cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage are not ready to harvest yet, they should be growing well - despite the uncharacteristic heat we've had this spring.
Raab is just the flowering tops of all those cruciferous vegetables - before the yellow blossoms have appeared - that you can pick next spring. A few flowers are fine, but picking the buds before they open will give you a restaurant quality harvest.
The key to having raab available in the spring of 2024, is leaving your cruciferous vegetables in the garden after the summer harvest and allowing them to overwinter. Broccoli is well known for producing endless small shoots after the main head is cut off. Cabbage will produce second heads in the summer. But you won't get raab from them until next spring.
The cool season cruciferous vegetables do best before the heat of summer sets in, but they will survive if not thrive through the hot days if you leave them in the ground. I plant corn on the south side of the kale to give it a little summer shade, and you will have to water to keep the plants alive. Cutting off any flowers that develop in summer will encourage the plants to winter over too, but if you tear out the sun baked cruciferous vegetables after they have produced their first crop, you will miss what might be the sweetest harvest they produce all year - springtime raab.
