Our kale + and Spinach seed steward Joseph Zarr is hosting a Zoom this Friday
Greetings Kale and Spinach seed savers!
Are you ready to get really excited about spinach and kale? Ok maybe not really excited but are you ready to discuss these incredibly important temperate crops? Join us for a community Zoom event where we’ll explore the world of these incredible greens. Let’s get serious, but let’s not take ourselves too seriously AND let’s have fun! Don’t be afraid, it’s vegetables…
Learn about the incredible resilience and diversity of spinach and kale (and, by proxy, tree collards and collards)
Share your own experiences and photos
Ask questions (you may get answers)
Share stories and experiences
Get into Geek-Mode
Hope to see you there!
This sounds fun! I better prepare my questions cuz I’ve got a lot.
Spinach & Good King Henry Cross possible? According to Phylogenic trees, Spinacia genus is closely related to Good King Henry & the other Blitum species like Strawberry Spinach.
Are you growing Wild Spinach Greens known as Lambsquaters Chenopodium album, seems like a better alternative than trying to force a cool season crop like spinach to grow in summer (Unless for seeds of course).
Are you recreating the Ethiopian Kale Cross (Brassica nigra x Brassica olercea)? Ethiopian Kale grows well through summer heat thanks to heat tolerance genetics of Black Mustard (Brassica nigra).
Can you explain how Perennial Kale can go to seed? I thought the whole reason it’s perennial in the first place was because it forgot how to go to seed thus requires propagation via cuttings.
Bubble texture of Dinosaur/laccinato Kale was bred into cabbage, has anyone bred this trait into brussle sprouts, like how the british did for the new crop Kalette?
Chinese Mustard cultivars of Brassica rapa x Brassica oleraceae cultivars a good idea?
Can we just cross all the cultivar groups of Brassica oleracea? What do you think will happen?
Radish (Raphanus spp. & Cabbage (Brassica oleracea) have been confirmed to cross & results in a new genus Brassicoraphanus. This opens up new opportunities to breed better tasting radish leaves & bring radish flavor into kale or cabbage. Have you played around with this yet? Arugula and other genera of Brassicae tribe are theoretically crossable too! I’d love to do a 3 way cross of Arugla, Raddish & kale to unlock new better flavors, How do you think I should go about it?
Is it possible to get flowers with both parts into Spinach? I know it happend with Cucumis melo.
Are you growing Amaranth Greens as an excellent alternative to Spinach Greens? What about celosia? What are your thoughts about the crop? There exist Tree-Trunk Sized Amaranth (Amaranthus australis), I’d love to turn that into a annual salad crop.
I have two year old mixed kale seed. It sat on my back porch thru two hot summers
Thinking it was bad, i dumped it into the garden a few days ago, all of it has germinated. I feel like I wasted the seed, its growing so close together.
And, the outside tempetature was 109 degrees today, same for tomorrow and predicted to be 111 degrees or hotter for Saturday. Hoping something survives, and yes, I am providing water.
Date: Friday, August 2nd, 5 pm PDT 
Zoom Link Here
