Lets do the "Brassica oleraceae" effect to other crops!

I’m not sure which Brassica rapa or Brassica napus or in my orchard. The Brassica rapa looks like Red Russian kale, so it’s probably that. The Brassica napus doesn’t look like either rutabaga or Russian Hunger Gap kale, which are the only two varieties I remember specifically adding of that species, so it’s probably something else. Tasty leaves, though.

Sadly, I stepped on the napus a few days ago, and it’s looking like it may have died. :sob: (It’s right in the walkway; volunteers sometimes do that.) I sure hope it’ll rebound and be okay.

I ate a few flowers of each of the plants I saved seeds from, and a few immature seed pods (which tasted just like broccoli – yummy!). I’ve been doing that with all the brassicas I save seeds from. It doubt it affected the perenniality of any of the plants at all. If I ate all the flowers and didn’t allow it to a plant to make any seeds at all, maybe it would, but that’s not something I’ve tried. (I want seeds!)

Yeah, Brassica oleracea has no spiciness. Its summer bitterness is very similar to the bitterness lettuce gets in summer.

There are perennial broccolis and cauliflowers – or at least, there is one: Nine Star perennial broccoli (which could also be argued is a cauliflower, beause the flowerbuds are white). I’ve tried it, and it died on me, but I want to eventually try again.

Honestly, though, if I want a perennial broccoli, I can just grow a yummy perennial kale . . . :wink: Still, a broccoli / cauliflower phenotype that grows a great big head would be nifty.

I seem to recall that when Mark Reed started working on his broccolish population, he found that brussels sprouts, cabbages, and kale seemed to be the most cold hardy phenotypes. He could get them to live through his zone 6 winter and make him delicious flowerbuds (which he called “broccolish”) in spring.

Brassica napus is B. rapa x B. oleracea so of course they gonna look very similar. Red Russian Kale is 100% Brassica napus.
Brassica napus has Rutabaga, Siberian Kales & Canola. A Cabbage or Brussle Sprout type hasn’t been created yet, lets fix that :grin:!

Wow Really? Immature pods taste like Broccoli?

Interesting… Lettuce is super bitter in summer, crazy Brassica gets that bitter. Real question is, does that mean the other Brassica species get spicy/hot instead of bitter? I’ve never experience either bolted lettuce or brassica olerace (Broccoli doesn’t count right?, cuz it’s not bitter at all) so I have no clue what that even tastes like.

oh wow! A new kind of Cauliflower I’ve never heard of. It’s like Romanesco Broccoli (Also technically a cauliflower) but less poinky & more flat. Doesn’t all Cauliflower eventually do the same thing? How does it’s pereniallity work? Same way as Perennial Kale? Is this a hybrid with it?

Agreed! How concentrated are the flowers in Perennial Kale? Has anyone done Crossing with Perennial Cauliflower or Broccoli types?

Awesome! Techically all the cultivar groups can be broccolish :joy:. However what suprised me is Cabbage is most cold hardy phenotype? Perhaps he meant the Savoy Cabbage? Cuz many gardeners who save seed have to uproot their cabbage plants to store indoors because they aren’t cold hardy enough.

@UnicornEmily Ahah!!! Aparently it isn’t truly “Perennial”.
“To maintain the plant as a perennial all the shoots will eventually need to be picked before seed set occurs. It should produce decent crops for four or five years.”
That’s what I read from : https://backyardlarder.co.uk/2017/04/nine-star-perennial-broccoli/

“…and it is reported to be a cross between one of the single headed varieties of broccoli and a sprouting kind.”
Interesting, does this make sense? Altho no one really knows for certain, even the blog I got the info from. I think it really does have cauliflower genetics somewhere there.

Some lettuces get really bitter in summer. Others only get a little bit bitter in summer. Guess what I’m planning to select my lettuce landrace for? :wink:

And yes, we have prickly lettuce as a weed in my ecosystem, and yes, I’m anal about pulling it out before it can flower. I don’t want it crossing with my lettuce landrace!

Yeah, immature broccoli seed pods seem to taste exactly the same as the flowerbuds – they’re just larger. So you can save the oldest pods to make seeds (which you will sow and share, obviously), and meanwhile pick the others at just the right stage for each seedpod to be ten times bigger than it was as a flowerbud, but otherwise exactly the same in taste and texture. I think that’s nifty. :grin:

I seem to recall Mark Reed found that his cabbage heads tended to die off in winter, but the roots would survive, and they’d grow back in spring and start flowering. He’s in zone 6, if I’m recalling correctly. There are many gardeners with colder winters.

Huh. Nine Star perennial broccoli is only perennial if it doesn’t make seeds? That . . . seems to defeat the whole point of it, then, doesn’t it? I want my brassicas to turn into great big plants with huge, well-established root systems that will pump out loads of broccoli and seeds for me every year. :wink:

This is all very interesting! Just make sure none of you are battering and deepfrying any hemlock flowers!

There are purple flowers, too, right? Chocolate Dara is a domesticated carrot variety that is intended to be ornamental, and has purple flowers.

Awesome!!! Is this how you harvest them? Or at a much earlier stage? Do you cook them or eat raw?

Is he cutting off the heads like this so the roots can survive & make more mini Cabbage heads later? I’m thinking it would also help make the plant more cold hardy no?

hahha, exactly! It’s pseudo perennial :joy:. That being said, can technically every single Brassica plant be perennial is you just keep pruning off the flowers? Like imagine you do that the whole summer till winter comes around, will the plant try to flower in Winter or will the winter trigger is going back to basal rosset stage?

Or any other Poisonous relative, it ain’t only Poison Hemlock you gotta watch out for :skull:
That being said, Poison Hemlock & Wild Carrot are very easy to distinguish once you know what to look for. This is why I think anyone growing Carrots (Or any Apiaceae relative) learns some basic Plant ID to avoid confusing Carrot for Poison Hemlock.

Nothing would suck more for a Poison Hemlock to grow amongst your carrot patch & you by accidentally making a deadly mistake.

@UnicornEmily I’ve heard of those deeply purple colored Carrot flowers & I’ve wanted to taste them. Haven’t researched carrots thoroughly yet, so I don’t know the diversity that exists in flower colors.

Yeah, that’s the stage I harvest them at, although they look like that whether they’re soft (perfect for eating) or tough (not very palatable to chew). So I go by the feel. Usually if the oldest ones are too tough, the youngest ones are just right, so I just feel further down the stem if the first ones I find are too tough.

Very tasty food. :blush:

I think that’s probably what he did with the cabbages. If he didn’t, he probably left the heads on and didn’t harvest anything. I can’t fully remember – I think he may have left the cabbage heads intact the first few years, and then tried out harvesting the heads *(before they would have died from cold anyway) in later years, and discovered that worked just as well. If I’m remembering correctly.

I think all brassicas flower in spring, but I could be wrong. I know some can keep the whole plant alive through the winter, while others will winterkill down to the ground, and then grow back from the roots. My perennial kale does both – the main stem is mostly brown and dead, but there are some new leaves sprouting out of the top of it. The rest of it is lush leaves growing at the base of the plant.

Lush leaves, I might add, that have been growing since last spring and let me harvest a few every so often all year round for over a year now. Wonderful plant. :broccoli:

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Fantastic Advise, Thank you!

Pretty much except for Brassica nigra which flowers more closer towards summer.

oh!? Is this for plants of big root cultivars?

Very interesting, so low leaves like on a Basal Rosett? Those lower leaves taste the same as the upper leaves right? Bolting nasty/bitter flavor is only present during hot weather & will affect both lower & upper stem leaves? I remember some brassicas the tips taste hotter than the older basal leaves. Not sure what’s going on there.

Those lower leaves aren’t really a basal rosette, more like multiple rosettes around the edges. Kind of like what you’d expect to see a brussel sprout grow up to be. :wink:

I haven’t noticed a correlation between big roots and winter hardiness so far. If anything, perhaps mildly the reverse. It’s just that some plants’ roots survive winter and grow new tops in spring, and some don’t.

Yeah, the new leaves on my perennial kale plant taste the same as the old leaves. Well, better because they’re younger, but otherwise exactly the same. :wink:

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This is a small parsley coming back for its second year. The root is pretty woody but has a sweet celery like taste.

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Edited because this was meant as a reply to another comment.

Alliaria petiolata is a very flexible and resilient species, but part of why it spreads so aggressively is its ability to thrive without mycorrhizal relationships. It actively disrupts mycorrhizal fungi in order to gain a competitive advantage over species that depend on them. It also suppresses germination and seedling growth of many other species. I’m not saying it won’t form any relationships, but it’s very likely that it behaves differently than most domesticated brassicaceae.

“Research shows that garlic mustard is allelopathic, meaning that it releases chemicals which can inhibit the growth of other plant species. Some researchers believe that these compounds can also hinder beneficial soil fungi (mycorrhizal fungi) which help tree roots take up water and nutrients. In experimental trials, the removal of garlic mustard led to increased diversity of annuals, tree seedlings and other plant species.”

Aiiii! How obnoxious. I prefer cooperation as the main mode of survival in the ecosystem I’m building. Species that are jerks to other species, I prefer to avoid.

(Of course, I do have the advantage of not having deer all over my yard. :wink: Deer are a jerk species, overgrazing absolutely everything to death, so I can’t blame any plants for needing to defend themselves if there are deer present.)

Yea that make sense as in the 2nd year the plant is sending all the energy from the root into the green shoot! 2nd year roots typically always woody, 1st year roots that form as the plant goes into fall/winter season are the best & most tender.

Indeed! But those Chemicals Garlic Mustard uses to disrupt Mycorrhizal connections are expensive for the plant to produce, once Allaria petiolata get somewhat established, they eventually fade away as the surrounding mycorrhiza move in. I wonder of Thlaspi spp. do the same thing? Allaria & Thlaspi are both part of the same Thlaspideae Tribe (Also explains why they both taste Garlicy).
Probably the same Mycorrhizal Disrupting Chemicals are found in other edible genera of the Thlaspideae Tribe like Pachyphragma macrophylla & Peltaria alliacea.

I hope I can cross Allaria petiolata x Thlaspi alliaceum as I have save seeds of Both species. But they seem to be pretty distant within the tribe, still I think it’s worth a try!

What do you think?

I wonder the reason garlic mustard is so common around here is because of deer, they eat everything else thus leaving only garlic mustard (& Other smelly strong tasting plants like Garlic & Mints alone). Maybe Garlic Mustard is trying to starve the deer out since wolves aren’t doing their ecological job?

I did notice garlic mustard slowly fading away, I see less & less of them every 2 years (Cuz they are bieannuals, often a majority of Plants sync into a cycle of 1 year a lot & the next year a little).