Double Crop Brassicas: is this the year I get brussels sprouts?

I've been working on double cropping** for a while now.  I started with legumes (both to refresh the soil and to get a second crop). I put beans in where my garlic was after harvest. I put beans in another bed after harvesting my oats. I've also tried putting in summer squash late in the season to squeeze a last-minute harvest.

Brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, kale, broccoli, etc.) are a natural choice for double cropping--and starting in fall--because they'll tolerate some cold.  They can be in the ground and productive longer as Fall sets in better than other crops which like heat, say, watermelon.  

This year, I think I'll get a few bonus heads of broccoli and I've already turned my mini cabbages (the cabbages are a variety that grows small and cone shaped) into runza with double cheese.

My double cropping white whale has been brussels sprouts, however.  By God, one year I will have roasted, homegrown Brussel sprouts at Thanksgiving! Been at it a couple years, and this year I have some hope that it will be a reality. If you look at the picture of one of my better plants, you'll see the sprouts popping and growing at the leaf joints.

If you want to try double cropping too, I'd offer the following notes:

• Look up your average date of first frost.  This is the key date to shoot for.  Out here on the Plains, it's October 15.

• Look at the seeds of the plant you want to grow.  The packet will tell you the days to maturity for the plant.  I'll use my cueball summer squash and brussels sprouts as an example.  The cueballs are 48 days to maturity, the sprouts take 100.

• Use Google to count back from your frost date by whatever amount is needed.  48 days prior to 10/15/25 is 8/28/25.  100 days is 7/7/25.  

• Now you have to apply some judgment and a guess.  The cueball is zucchini.  It might still live after a frost.  It might even finish some of the fruit that was close to ready.  Any flowers or young young fruit will be lost in a frost.  Brussels sprouts (and other brassicas) don't mind as much.  I would probably cheat the cueballs back a couple weeks.  That means starting the seeds indoors in late July, early August. The brussels sprouts maybe the first part of July.

• Harden the seedlings off as per usual and plant out when ready.  You might consider holding back any brassicas by a bit--leaving them indoors a little longer--so they can go out later in July when things (hopefully) have cooled a bit.  Zucchini's don't care as much.

• Re. pests and transplant shock.  Get yourself some floating row cover.  I have a terrible time with even trying to harden off (let alone post-transplanting) brassicas because of the cabbage moths.  I have an equally terrible time with the squash vine borers.  Both can be stopped by floating row cover.  You can pull the row cover off the summer squash safely by about mid August (the borers will be mostly gone by that point).  This is especially important if you don't know how to pollinate them by hand.  You'll need some insects in there!  As for the brassicas, I'd leave it on longer:  the moths don't go away til it's much colder.  You will want big, strong, and healthy plants which can hold up under the insect pressure.  As a side benefit, the floating row cover will also help provide some shade to plants newly-transplanted into the tail end of summer.  

**Getting two crops of something out of the same land in one year.