Mark R
2022-02-10T08:00:00Z
I started F1 seeds last fall, later in the season than the original plants the year before so they were much smaller than those the year before. Between those I planted and late sprouting volunteers I had probably 200 going into winter. Earlier sprouting volunteers were stupidly removed to make way for a cowpea patch last year.
Anyway, of those 200 smaller plants four have survived, broken dormancy and growing nicely. What seemed like a disaster is maybe a windfall of good luck in the four that lived because they were widely separated, indicating their survival was not some random chance of a microclimate or soil condition that caused them to live but instead something genetic.
Threre are two obvious phenotypes and maybe a third more subtle one in the four plants. I transplanted them all to the same little spot a while back along with a single kale plant of unknown variety. I have plenty of kale seed so later on I will probably remove all other kale in the garden to ensure that any seeds from that plant are crosses to the broccol-ish plants.
I also have a Chinese variety of broccoli (Yod Fah) that I got from Baker Creek that I direct sowed a few weeks ago. It is one of few direct sowed things so far this year that actually sprouted and survived late frost and freezes. It is supposed to be ready to harvest in 45 days so I’m in hopes it will be ready to bloom at about the same time as my other plants. If so, I will transplant a single one of it into my seed patch as well.
I hope now to have:
1 - Kale, with solid winter hardiness that may or may not already be crossed with something else and crossed again this year with my mix and the Yod Fah
2 - The Yod Fah crossed to my mix and the kale
3 - The F2 generation of my other mix
If that works out, I will plant it all later this summer along with a bunch more of the F1 seed from last year. I’m going to plant it a little earlier this year and in abundance so in 2023 I can have a big patch to select from for hardiness, productivity and flavor.
I actually regard all of these plants as annuals. With the kale’s bloom cycle a full 12 months and the Yod Fah’s 45 days. If I can get a cross between those two and all the others, I may have what I need to make a self-seeding, basically feral crop that makes fresh broccol- ish nearly year- round with its off time being the hot worm-infested summer months.
@Alma N if your plants are already blooming, you must be in a climate where this project might be easy. You could be harvesting fresh broccol-ish all winter long, well before I do.
Alma N
I can harvest leaves all winter long, they just grow very slow when it’s cold.
The feral B. Rapa started flowering almost a month ago. I may be able to get their genetics into my Rapas but I doubt Oleracea will ever bolt that early.
Ray S
I’m starting a B. oleracea landrace, based on kales and broccoli. I have seedlings of the kales Baltic Red, Dazzling Blue, Lacinato Rainbow, Madeley, Pentland Brig and Scarlet Red and the broccoli Peacock. You’ll notice some of Frank Morton’s (Wild Garden Seed) creations here, two of which are already quite diverse. They’ll be planted out this weekend, I hope, to get established before our first frost, due in about a month.
Gregg M
I’ll see what I’ve got in the fridge if you are interested Ray. I’ve got Portuguese cabbage and spigarello for sure and i might have other Wild Garden stuff from the deep past.
Ray S
I have quite a collection of oleracea so no need to pull stuff out of the fridge. Thanks for the offer though.
I know spigariello is often labelled as B. oleracea but I think it’s B. rapa. To me, it has that distinct turnip top odour and taste, mild, but noticeable.
Greenstorm
I’ll need to dive into this more; I’m mixing a ton of kales, rapinis, gai lans, napa cabbages, etc together this summer. I haven’t been recording which brassica any of them are, so I’ll have to dig into which are which this winter. I think many of my favourites may be rapas. Need to figure out how to tell the difference if I am going to separate.
Alma N
I try to keep the species separate, very little interspecies crosses are possible (apparently bud pollination helps). I wouldn’t mind having them all mixed up personally, but I suspect that I’ll find it was a good idea not to mix. They will probably cook at different rates, and be better for different uses (Napus kales are amazing in a zuppa toscana, Juncea for a mess of greens, Oleracea for broccolish).
As for identification, I have been having some difficulties with my wild brassicas (3 that seem important). There just aren’t many sources with good pictures. I think I’ve figured it out, but I want to keep learning. I have a few greens seed mixes that I bought that have multiple species, would probably be a fun ID project. I’ll be taking lots of pictures if anyone is interested.
Mark R
I wish I knew more about the wild ones. Something I think might be wild mustard is blooming in my neighborhood right now, but it tastes awful. I don’t know if it would cross with mine or not but just in case, I won’t allow it anywhere near the place.
I would like to incorporate wild things into my landraces but not at the expense of years’ worth of selection to make it fit to eat again. My mustard is basically wild anyway but delicious. Mostly the only reason I even harvest seed is in case of some freaky crop failure, or an unwanted accidental cross happens, I can just start over.
Some nasty stink bug looking critters showed up in my garden yesterday, the earliest I have ever seen them. They are very colorful and usually don’t show up here till mid-summer or so. They were all clustered on a single turnip plant although plenty other turnip plants are available.
I think it was Joseph who spoke about selection against bugs on potatoes by culling the plants they were most attracted to. I left that one turnip to observe. If it is more attractive to the bugs, I’ll use it as a trap to attract and kill them but be careful to never let it open a flower to disperse pollen, let alone make seeds.
Alma N
I doubt you have wild B. Juncea, but it’s possible. If it is spicy I would guess black mustard. They are the ones that leave the tall skeleton with heavy branching at the top. Wild turnip (rapa) is mild with the leaves wrapping around the stem on both sides at the nodes (picture).
Here’s what the Black mustard looks like right now. I haven’t cooked up a mess of them yet, but I want to. The spicy should cook out. I think the fresh leaves could be chopped fine and used as a condiment.
Greenstorm
Sometimes weird alchemy happens in the spicy ones if you ferment them with salt.
Alma N
Mustard Kraut… I can’t wait to try it on a hotdog.
Greenstorm
I put some garlic in mine too, intense but good.
I end up using it like Sichuan “pickled vegetable” and such, actually.
My Brocollish seeds arrived! They’ll get in the ground in the next 2 weeks or so, I need to buck a fallen tree off that part of the field: it’s lightly shaded on a south slope, very rich, fairly moist, a little cool. I plan to do a last-man-standing selecting, eating the entirety of the first 25% of plants to flower and the tiniest 25% of the plants saving seed from what’s left.
