What are your staple crops, Mark? Is sweet potato the main one? I’m trying to figure out what my staples should be.
I know that. I’ve planted in a patch, former field on rolled out old hay, thé cows didn’t want. Killed most herbs, soaked full of water during winter. Came spring dumped potatoes on thé hay. And a layer of cuttings on top. While they grew i kept adding.
Worked quite well. People saïd theirs had burned doing traditional potato growing. It’s also easy to remove some from under their herby blanket without disturbing.
Just to feed a family it might be worth a go.
Yeah, that makes sense. I’m thinking squashes and sunchokes are looking like very promising staples here. I’m hoping beans can become so, too.
Sunchokes are particularly nice because I can keep them in the ground, and just dig up a few whenever the ground’s thawed in winter. No inside space needed.
I really hope I can get Brassica oleracea to be my main vegetable, which I eat every day. So far, signs are pretty promising.
I probably can get purslane to be that, fairly easily. 
It’s so productive, and tasty, and it’s a literal weed here! But of course, it’s only available in summer. And while I enjoy it, I’m sure I can get sick of it. I almost never get tired of broccoli.
Good! Because I want a whole lot of it! 
You know, I read somewhere – I think it may have been in one of Samuel Thayer’s foraging books – that Brassica oleracea is a plant species that basically volunteered to be domesticated. Similar to wolves. Both species have always been very friendly to humans as wild species, and very amenable to being bred by humans. I thought that was an interesting comparison.
And back on the original subject of this thread, maybe bolting early could be a useful trait if you want broccoli in midsummer, and/or want to grow two generations in one year?
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Yeah Emily, i wonder about that sometimes…Some biannual plants ,andives for instance bold early occasionaly.
When that happened to me i thought the other ones were slow. But it was me. You think i study what i grow? Hell no.
The ones i didn’t eat that winter flowered the next season to my surprise. But then the seeds of the early few i had planted already were small plants. Well, then most did like their parents, flower early.
But then i saved the seeds of the two year olds and got on with those. I figured , if the plant gets more time to mature i get to eat more ( sometimes i pick a third of a plant and let it grow further on). And because they’re bigger their seeds will be too, so better germination and faster growth.
And now you’re saying it’s good for crosses. Which makes total sense. But… Can a variety be bred back into biannuallism afterwards i wonder. Has anybody done that?
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The way I understand bolting is when broccoli starts flowering early, not forming head early. When it resists bolting it makes a big head before it bolts. Atleast here early head production usually has meant early bolting without making significant head. I have had problem with fungal disease that damages roots which affects water intake and stresses plants making them do that. Plant would need to grow big without too much stress to grow bigger head before they bolt
My brocoli bolted and did not get a head to harvest, too much sun. But I do not think I can get a viable seed, bolted plants are very far away.
Adding to the topic, my second generation spinach just started bolting. I added more varietys but they do not like the hot sun.
There’s a term for what you’re describing! “Winter annual.” Crops that live for a year (or less), growing throughout the winter, and then usually flower and make seeds in spring. A lot of grains are like that (for instance, wheat). I suspect many Brassica oleraceas are, too.
In any case, you have an excellent point that a crop that grows to maturity in significantly less than twelve months is rather different from one that takes twelve months.
If it takes a population three months to grow to maturity, you might be able to grow two generations in one year and avoid the coldest (or hottest) part of the year.
If it takes six months, growing two generations in one year would require it being happy in both high and low temperature extremes, which is iffy except in climates that have very few extremes one way or the other (such as the tropics).
Or growing one of those generations in a temperature-controlled environment such as your house or a greenhouse. I know people do that.
A twelve-month annual, though . . . well, you can’t grow more than one generation per year, by definition.
So yeah, you’re absolutely right that days to maturity is an essential consideration when trying for multiple generations in one year!
Yep, makes sense to me!
I think you’re right that short DTM is going to become more and more essential for places that get unpredictable weather (which is now most places on Planet Earth).
The other issue, of course, is that it takes a lot longer to produce radish seed than radish roots. I can certainly sow multiple rounds of radishes, beets etc per year, but I don’t expect all of them to have time to develop seed that I can harvest; so having lots of spare seed starts to get really important.
That radish sounds great! I agree, radish leaves are tasty. Just like the seed pods, I like them better than the roots!
I think China Rose was bred as a microgreens radish; if you’re interested in buying lots and lots of seed (rather than growing it yourself, of course!) it might be cheaper to buy it from a sprouting seed purveyor than a trad seed merchant.
Oh, that’s interesting. If it’s intended for microgreens, it has probably been bred for tasty leaves and seed production, which would imply it makes a lot of pods. Mark, let us know what you think of its pods’ taste!
Well, maybe I should’ve said “selected for,” rather than “bred for”?
I have to assume anything that’s sold for microgreens is a variety that’s good at making a lot of seeds.
Brief aside, we got harlequin bugs on our oleracea this year. I don’t recall ever seeing them before
