I’ve volunteered to steward cabbage for Going to Seed—any varieties of Brassica oleracea that grow a single head. I know several people are already working on cabbage landraces, including @hollyhock and @Lora.
I’m posting here to assess interest; who would be willing to donate seeds for such a grex? How many people already have second-year cabbage plants growing that will produce seeds this year?
Are there any particular traits or varieties that you think should be incorporated into a cabbage grex, or good sources for unusual material that you’d like to recommend?
Personally, I think an important trait to select for is ease of overwintering; difficulty in getting heads through the winter keeps many seed savers from working with this crop. If they can grow back from stumps and produce seed after the cabbage has been eaten, so much the better.
Cabbages grown for seed should be at least somewhat separated from non-heading forms of B. oleracea, though a little bit of pollen flow shouldn’t be a big problem in my opinion; they would probably lead to non-heading plants that could be rouged out in the first growing season. If you give them as much isolation from other forms as you can that should be fine. After all, the eventual landraces will be maintained by home gardeners who may be working in small spaces.
I am super interested in the project, but won’t have seeds to share for a season or two. Easy of overwintering is important. I’m also looking for short season and red.
For whatever it may be worth, I have a cabbage stem (storebought, organic) which was planted and has put forth leaves. It was planted with no regard to seasonality and has had no inputs. I was already planning to let it go to seed, if so would it be of any use to your grex?
I’m very interested as well, though like @Iamadesertcreature I only have market/store bought heads this year. By necessity I am screening them all for CMS. If they pass that screening, they may still have crossed with turnip, rutabaga, or wild brassicas.
Maybe there is a ‘reckless oleracea’ mix waiting in the wings, where male-fertile plants that are likely to have crossed with non-heading varieties could live?
I’m growing several cabbage varieties this year. I will be happy to share seed next year, assuming I have some to do so.
Red cabbage
Golden acre cabbage
Brunswick cabbage (a fall type)
I started red cabbage and golden acre inside, they’ll be moving out as soon as I get a bed finished. I’m going to evaluate them as spring planted. My plan is to later in the year do a direct seeded fall crop of all three. The fall crop I hope to overwinter as many as possible for seed production. The bottom end being pulled for eating.
@H.B and Jessica @Iamadesertcreature , seeds from commercial cabbage would be fine so long as it doesn’t have CMS. (I don’t care about it that much myself, but I know a lot of other people do, so I wouldn’t want to include that in the grex.)
Another thing to consider is that one cabbage plant by itself, of whatever kind, may not produce seed due to incompatibility.
As far as crossing, I think it is fairly unlikely for cabbage (B. oleracea) to cross with turnip (B. rapa) or rutabaga (B. napus). I don’t know what wild brassicas you have, but many of them are similarly distant enough to reduce the possibility of crossing. As such, I think the rare cross that might occasionally happen between these groups would be more of an exciting benefit than anything. The main thing I want to avoid is any cabbage that grew right alongside other, non-heading B. oleracea. (Broccoli, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, collards, and most though not all kales.) That would probably produce too high of a percentage of crosses, and would overwhelm the mix. Though as I said, the possibility of a few crosses with other oleracea is fine, and unavoidable in a home garden setting.
A reckless oleracea mix might be fun! I’m not sure what parameters Joseph @Bizarro is setting for the kale+ mix this year.
For myself in my own garden, I’m mixing together kale, broccoli, and possibly Brussels sprouts. A population with tasty leaves, tender flowering shoots, and edible secondary buds would be great. (I already find that many broccolis have kale/collard-tasting leaves.) I’m keeping only the cabbage separate since it has such a very different use/form.
I’m having great success with just that. I call it broccol-ish and have talked about it a bit here on the site, Julia even put a little video about it. Planted in late summer the small plants handle winter much better for me than did my attempts with mature plants and start blooming early the next spring. The flower stalks of the “broccol-ish” are the primary crop although the young leaves and even the stalks are also very good. We’ve been enjoying it since mid-March or so and it’s coming on really good right now, we had the first larger broccol-ish stalks for supper last evening.
Of the original planting of about fifty varieties, I’m pretty sure most that survived the first season were various cabbages and brussels sprouts. Kale on its own was already winter hardy for me but I limited its influence to increase the new diversity. The project turned out much better and a lot faster than I had expected it would. A really great bonus is as long as weather stays reasonably cool, the more you harvest the more it produces.
A “reckless oleracea” mix would be great! I have brussels sprouts and kohlrabi that have overwintered successfully – they’re starting to leaf out, yay! – and they’re right next to each other, on purpose. I’m planning to let them cross and see what I get. I bet some of those seeds would be great for that kind of grex.
Like @KadenceLunemann did above, I think it would be great to list the cabbage varieties we plan to plant for overwintering this Fall. That way, we can each try to add more cabbage varieties without duplicating what other people are doing.
That being said, I think it would be great if each variety was grown in at least two locations—that way, it is more likely that each of them will actually end up in the mix. If anybody wants to swap seeds back and forth for this project, PM me. In particular, it would be great to get help from people in mild-winter climates where cabbage overwinters easily, so that more genetics make it into the final pool.
The varieties I have include the following. Some of the seed is old, but I think most of it should at least produce a few plants, and even one surviving plant of each would be enough for the first generation. The first three are the most viable and most interesting varieties.
Belarus Cabbage Grex (a four-way cabbage mix from Peace Seedlings)
January King
Winter King Savoy
Golden Acre
All Seasons
Brunswick
Primo
Red Acre
@MarkReed, I’ve been very inspired by your broccol-ish project. Drawing from it, I’m planning to start growing all my biennial crops as true biennials, instead of trying to start them in early spring as if they were annuals. That way, I should not only avoid the cabbage butterflies and aphids, but I should also avoid having small, vulnerable plants exposed to the erratic weather and cutworms in the spring. (By late June, the cutworms will all have become moths and flown off.)
I’ve sort of made up my own interpretation of annual and biannual based on a calendar year instead of a growing season. The broccol-ish for example is an annual, in that it takes about 10 months or so to mature with winter being an important part of its cycle. I see that as one annual cycle, rather than two growing seasons. I think other things such as carrots and chard might easily adapt to that as well, onions certainly do.
Things that take just one growing season but that generally do not have time to do it twice in one season, such as corn and beans I think of as seasonals, rather than annuals.
I’m not sure yet what I want to call things that can do multiple generations in one growing season. Radishes, lettuce, dill and some others do that. Multi-seasonal isn’t right because it implies more than one season. Fractionally seasonal is more accurate but is hard to say. O well, I’ll think of something and even if I don’t, they still grow.
I’m having fun and success in getting on board with what the plants want to do as far as when to plant them. With many things, in particular those erroneously described as biannual, the time to plant them is when their seed matures, not the next spring. In some cases, I’m trading off the traditional use and harvestable product, I’ll never see an actual head of cabbage like this for example, but I’m fine with that.
That seems backwards, erratic weather and bugs of spring versus the cold of winter but I’m finding it is a lot easier to adapt them to the cold of winter. When they wake up the next spring it’s still too cold for the bugs, they don’t need watered, and the harvest is abundant. I think it might be that young plants of about any so called biannual are much happier in the bug-free cold of winter than the heat of summer.
Mark, that’s funny; what you are describing as annuals are what I was describing as “true biennials”. Now that I come to think of it, “annual” makes more sense! They are the only crops that take one year—It just doesn’t happen to line up with our calendar year! It is closer to an academic year, and nobody would say that our academic schedules are biennial!
I supposed the fast-generation plants could be described as monthly or bi-monthly?
I’m wondering if one of the reasons biennials are happier when planted in mid to late summer rather than early spring is that the cool ground in spring means that the soil life is not as active. Nitrogen isn’t being mineralized as fast and other nutrients are less available. By contrast, in the fall the weather is cooling down (which these plants tend to like) but the soil is still warm and active due to a thermal lag. An overwintered biennial can draw on a large reserve of stored energy to get going in the unfavorable weather of spring. I agree, it sounds weird to talk about spring as an unfavorable time for growth, but in our increasingly erratic climate that really seems to be the case.
I do hope though that I can make cabbage work as a “MarkReed style annual”. I’m hoping that if I select for fast seed production in the spring and fast-maturing heads in the fall I’d be able eat cabbages throughout the winter, with the stumps of the cabbage going to seed in the spring. Unlike broccol-ish or kale, cabbages might actually be able to stay in edible shape through the winter, since they are more of a storage organ than a leaf.
I think this could be another important part of landrace gardening—adapting not only our crops but also our expectations to our local climate. Maybe it wouldn’t be possible to produce a cut-worm or cabbage looper-resistant kale landrace—but maybe we don’t need to if we work with a plant’s natural preferences instead of against them!
Many of the things I grow for food had their origins a very long time ago in climates very different from mine. They were adapted, selected, forced over thousands of years into becoming something very different from what they were, in effect becoming phenotypical and genetic subsets of what they were. It’s difficult and becoming more difficult for me to grow them in what evolved to be the accepted manner. I can grow cabbage in that traditional way, but I can’t grow cabbage and cabbage seeds that way.
So, especially as it applies to the so called “biennials” I decided to reassemble the species itself as best I could, and let it decide what it wants to do in my climate. I don’t get heads of cabbage or nice brussels sprouts but I get yummy food in late winter and early spring, and I do very little work to accomplish it. No watering, no squishing bugs, just go out and pick it.
How early in the year are the seeds from your broccol-ish plants mature and ready to plant? For my cabbage landrace, I’m hoping that I can get small heads to mature before winter weather sets in, but if the plants set seed too late that won’t work.
I’m now wondering what the difference is between a “biennial” and the “winter annual” plants that grow in Mediterranean climates. I suppose one difference is that a “biennial” grows a storage organ of some sort, and has top growth that tends to die back over the winter and resprout in spring, whereas a “winter annual” doesn’t need a storage organ since the top growth remains alive. Though there are clearly edge cases such as kale.
Seeds are maturing around mid to late June and into early July, and therein lies a small flaw in my plan. I would like to plant them right then so at eventually lead to them going feral. Problem is all my space is taken up with other things at that time and sprouting in July subjects them to the worst of the heat and bugs, so I wait until mid to late September to plant and just put up with having to water and squish bugs for a month or so.
That issue may be fairly easily surmountable as some completely volunteer plants that came up from lost seeds last summer did fine and are producing now. “I think” they had the good sense to just lay there during the hot dry and sprouted at the appropriate time on their own. I’ll be observing that much more closely this year.
I have my arugula patch (going on 4 years now since I actively planted a seed) in the area of the garden where I let winter squash sprawl in the summer. The seed lays there all summer in the dry and sprouts with the fall rains. This strategy may not work so well in a wet summer climate, but it’s a fine one for my house. I do always have some get knocked/blown/carried into the irrigated garden areas, and I pull it if it’s in the way or eat it if it’s not.
I did that with my brassicas last year! It worked great, except that the brassica sprouts died by the end of December, instead of overwintering for me. Perhaps if I’d covered them with a mini greenhouse, it would have kept them alive; it may have been the weight of the snow rather than the cold that was the problem. It’s something I want to test this year.
described as biannual, the time to plant them is when their seed matures, not the next spring. In some cases, I’m trading off the traditional use and harvestable product, I’ll never see an actual head of cabbage like this for example, but I’m fine with that.