Many of the vegetables can be regrown from leaves, roots, and even the fruit itself. Usually, we harvest them, bring home, and then regrow vegetable from scraps using water jar or small pot with soil. But can the vegetable be regrown from the root in the garden? Kohlrabi certainly can.

Kohlrabi belongs to the Brassica family, origins from Eastern Europe, and it tastes like a mixture of turnip and cabbage. It’s usually left to reach full size and then harvested. Fully sized kohlrabi can be a bit tough and used only when cooked well, so I harvest them before they reach the tennis ball size while the flesh is still tender. This usually happens in late July and after the harvest, I get 2 to 3 more harvests, depending on the weather conditions.

Information that kohlrabi can be grown from the root I’ve learned by accident, leaving the roots in the soil after the harvest. I didn’t have time to clean the bed, later I forgot about it, and in a month I had new kohlrabi for harvest.

Since then I’ve been testing different methods of cutting and taking care of the root to see the best way to make it grow another bulb. I came to the conclusion that the most important things are how you cut the root and plenty of water.

When we harvest the kohlrabi, we usually cut the bulb at the soil level damaging the root, but cutting it just a bit higher will provide us a new harvest. While harvesting, cut the kohlrabi just above the first bract. This is the place where the root will start growing new leaves. Once the leaves start showing, the plant will close the wound on the top, and start regrowing the bulb.

Be sure to give the kohlrabi enough water, or if the conditions are rough and dry, cover it with mulch. This is a very dry year, so I’ve covered my kohlrabi with hay, and I’m watering it every couple of days. This year kohlrabi will grow slower than the last year, but it’s already growing new leaves, and it will soon start filling the bulb. Next time you harvest leave 2 bracts and repeat the procedure.

Kohlrabi harvested two weeks ago

This way last year I’ve harvested the same plant on 4 different occasions: 23.07, 30.08, 30.09, 18.11. As you can see the harvests are around a month after the previous, with the last one being smaller than the rest. November was getting colder, so the kohlrabi started growing slower and the ideal time for harvest would have been 2 months after the cutting, but the frost days were getting stronger, so I had to harvest it earlier. 

This year I don’t think the harvests will be so often, the weather is too hot and dry. I will get 2 more harvests, but we’ll see. Maybe the weather changes and we’ll have even more harvests.