I’m working on finishing up seed starting plans for my Brassicas this year, and have settled on a really reckless “throw it all at the dirt and see what sticks” mix. This includes not only the GTS '24 Kale+/Reckless Oleracea, but also a number of things I already had on hand. Here’s the mix:
GTS '24 Kale+
Homesteader’s Kaleidoscopic Perennial Kale Grex (EFN)
Mermaid’s Aurora v.1 (a collard/cabbage cross from Fruition Seeds)
Rashtan Tree Collards (SkillCult)
Rubine Brussels Sprouts
Lacinato Kale
and any brassicas of interest that pop up out of the GTS '24 Grab Bag
I started a small flat with collards/sprouts/EFN kales just for security, but I’ll be direct-seeding everything else in the mix to see how they handle it. And I may toss in some old ornamental frilled kale seeds I have rattling around, and a packet of White Russian that I’ve seen listed as napus and oleracea, depending on where you look. It depends on how much extra space I end up with in my new beds.
My own experience broadcasting brassicas has been pretty underwhelming. Out of bok choy, kale, turnip, cabbage, and mustard, the only type Ive gotten great germination with so far is mustard, then turnip. Bok choy I don’t remember a single solitary seed and kale was very spotty - - maybe 4 out of 70+ seeds for the EFN perennial kale and better for other varieties. Most of these went into grass though, including the mustard.
We’re in heavy vole-ridden clay. The voles girdle the EFN kale ahead of winter but after giving up on them and assuming I’d have to get clones or seeds from a buddy, I’m watching them very closely as again. There might be signs of life! Tough little plants
I’m technically in clay, but I’ve been amending the soil in my growing areas for many years and working in raised beds for the most part (starting to transition away from that this year) so the soil is pretty soft and rich. We haven’t had a serious vole issue in the past, but this winter I discovered what I’m guessing is vole damage around the base of a survivor chard. It had overwintered through 2022’s Christmas time polar vortex freeze and bloomed, then set new growth through late 2023. The furry little invader did it in, though… the plant was taken out at the roots. So we’ll see how the brassicas fare this year.
My indoor started oleracea are starting to get true leaves, and I’m getting excited about some of the variation I’m seeing… a couple of the Mermaid’s Aurora appear to have finely frilled leaves, and the EFN perennial kale grex is showing some nice variation, including one that looks like it might have shiny leaves like greasy collards. Most interesting to me… one of the Rashtan tree collards seedlings has variegated cotyledons!
If the variegation carries into the true leaves, I’ll adjust my live-or-die plans for this one seedling. Whether it’s a random mutation or a cross with another oleracea (I’ll be contacting the source here soon to see if that’s even possible), it’ll be valuable color genetics for the mix as a whole and I won’t want to lose it to random pests before it has a chance to get some genes passed on!
I’m transitioning into mixing all the brassica seeds together and broadcasting them. Actually, am transitioning into that with everything I grow. I believe that fall is the best time for sowing brassicas. Scatter-sow thickly and let nature do the thinning.
For that matter, I’m planning to try fall sowing with beans and squash as well. I have enough seed now to be able to experiment. I want to take full advantage of the soil moisture in spring because rains have been over with by June, the last few years. Watering in our hot, dry summers is expensive and wasteful of water.
I’ve already transitioned to letting the tomatoes volunteer. That’s working well in my garden. Letting brassicas go to seed and disperse their own seed might be my next step.
That sounds great! I’ve been doing the same thing, though not intentionally, but due to laziness or unwillingness to go outside into the summer heat. My plants just end up fending for themselves most of the time.
How do you ensure that the different varieties are blooming at the same time if you want them to cross? Do you calculate the days to maturity and sow seeds at the right time so they bloom simultaneously? Or do you just sow the seed mix, a little every several days, so that eventually, some will be blooming at the same time?
AWESOME!!! Are you also going to include Wild Spicy Brassica? Some Brassica rapa Cultivars would go well here too! I’ve got some Mustard seeds from grocery store, they germinate well. How reckless do you want it? Are spicy genetics worth it or no? Cuz the only mustard seeds that germinate for me are the Spicy Yellow & Brown Mustard seeds I get from the Spice aisle at my Giant & Indian Grocery Stores. I think most gardeners always transplanted the Brassica oleracea crops & the seeds got used to it, unlike the spicy mustard seeds that were more often direct sown.
Succession sowing is very useful, not least because my time any given day is limited. I wear a fanny pack i keep little bags of seeds in , to work with day by day. My garden seems haphazard to people used to clean cultivation and straight rows. It’s just a very different approach. Some people end up liking it and some people feel very uncomfortable with it. It tends to track pretty closely with their overall desire to control outcomes.
When you succession sow, do the seeds mature faster as the season ends? I’ve heard this is what happens with wild Brassica rapa & Brassica nigra as they try to catch up with the rest of the population. I’ve also read they are day-light neutral flowering. Any thoughts?
That’s smart. I carry a fanny pack when foraging.
In other words your garden mimics the style of nature . But I do get the visual appeal of nice & Clean but I’ve learned that you can’t have nice thing with animals around. Things gotta be a HUGE Mess for your crop to hide form them (Unless you can build a fence).
Brassicas are super adaptable and very prolific of seed. So between those two characteristics, there are just so many possibilities. More generally, I think that most species of plants will mature more rapidly if it’s later in the season. They might flower at a smaller size, produce fewer or smaller seeds/fruit, but they will make every effort to get it done in order to procreate. That’s really what their goal is, it’s to reproduce. They try hard to achieve the goal.
Another general trend is that growth of plants tends to be exponential up to some limit. So if they can get far enough to get to that inflection point, they can do a lot of catching up with their older peers that have already approached the limit.
Of course, Nature doesn’t like being boxed in haha . I Like that because it gives us a buffet of traits to lean into for our landrace. Knowing this, Brassica could be bred to be slow bolt or no bolt (As in Perennial Kale). I’m super curious as to how that happend? How does a plant forget how to flower?
That right there, are the conditions RIPE for Speedbreeding! You can pump out like 6 generations in 1 year of Brassica Crosses. That way you can do all the complicated interspecies breeding indoors & save the Environmental Pressure on selection for landracing outdoors.
That explains why a lot Gardeners say their summer planted Corn & Tomatoes catched up with their early spring planted crops.
How often do you succession sow? I was contemplating once a week, but I don’t know if that’s too often, or not often enough.
I’m glad there’s some space away from the front of my house for me to pursue a more haphazard looking approach. I’ve described it as a kind of experimental vegetable thunderdome to others who haven’t heard of landrace gardening, where I leave plants to mostly fend for themselves until I return to collect seeds from the survivors.
Trying this again this year. Last year was a bust, nothing survived after my mental health took a nosedive and I stopped tending to the garden entirely.
Here’s my updated mix:
GTS '24 Kale+ mix
GTS '25 Kale+ mix
Homesteader’s Kaleidoscopic Perennial Kale Grex (EFN)
Mermaid’s Aurora v.1 (a collard/cabbage cross from Fruition Seeds)
Rashtan Tree Collards (SkillCult)
Hen Peck Collards
Dazzling Texture Kale
Spigariello Riccio
I started most of these indoors for the first week, then moved all of the trays to my new greenhouse. They’ve been subjected to cold, just-above freezing nights (33* and up) and some rather warm (70*-80ish*) days, not a lot of babying. The Rubine Brussels sprouts I started at the same time gave up from this abuse, so they’re not included this year!
So far, the Perennial Kale grex is looking good, with all but 8 of the 36 cells planted surviving to two sets of true leaves. No exceptional color or texture standouts, but all very healthy. One or two of the healthiest but most “boring” looking will probably end up planted out at my town’s community garden.
I have one plant I’m keeping an eye on… it’s one of the Mermaid’s Aurora, a darker purple than the others, very highly dissected leaves, even the cotyledons were slightly dissected instead of the classic brassica seedling shape. I’d love to get some crosses with that one, if I can get others in this group to flower at the same time.
I’m not going to be including any B. rapa or others, just B. oleracea for now. My ideal result would be perennial “kale” type plants with a little more heat tolerance (thus bringing in some collard genetics) and fancy texture/color. Realistically, though, adaptation to local conditions and neglect take priority.
I’ll actually be putting together a mixed up plot of mustards separate from this mix, letting it cross however it wants and self-seed. I love spicy greens, and the mix I have includes everything from milder mustards to super spicy ones!
I have some napus kales, but for now I’m sticking with B. oleracea for this mix.
The perpetual mustard patch I’m planning will hopefully cross itself up however it wants, especially since I’ll be planting everything very thickly to start. Here’s the base “mustards” mix I’ll be putting in:
Wild Garden Seed Pungent Mix (juncea)
Wild Garden Seed Vivid Choi (rapa)
Wild Garden Seed Dragon Feathers (juncea)
Frizzy Lizzy Mizuna (rapa)
Mizuna (rapa)
Dragon Tongue (juncea)
Wild Garden Seed Mustard, Mild Mix (rapa)
And for fall, I may throw in Purple Lady Choy (rapa) and Yellow Heart Winter Choy (also rapa) for some extra winter-hardiness in the patch.
I may toss in Arugula, including Red Dragon and Atomic, and I also have some Japanese Giant Red mustard (juncea), but that one gets so large I don’t know that I want it in my “perpetual mustard” patch. It just depends… I have some fellow community gardeners who love arugula, so that patch may just go to the community garden’s big community bed to share around. In time, I hope to get them on board with some landrace/adaptation projects…
Napus kales mixed in? or kept seperate? Or napus kales kept seperate into the Mustard mix?
Oh nice! Those are somewhat winter hardy? Not as cold hardy as Napus kales or Brussels Sprout types right?
Wow How huge exactly does Japanese Giant red Mustard get? We talking 2ft long leaves?
Does Red Dragon actualy taste like Arugula or something else mustardy (Since it belongs to a different genus Diplotaxis tenuifolia)? They should cross with Arugula (Eruca versicaria) just fine without any chromosome doubling. Perhaps it shouldn’t even be a separate genus?
Napus kales separate… I’ll be planting them in my community garden plot, no chance to mix with the oleracea.
You can harvest Yellow Heart right out from under the snow, supposedly. I haven’t tried it yet. But I’ve gotten tatsoi through some serious cold before, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
I don’t think I ever got 2ft leaves, but definitely 1ft plus, the last time I grew it properly spaced. When it went to seed (as tall as me!), I just let the seeds drop where they wanted and sprout for fall. Those stayed smaller due to crowding. Several overwintered no problem for spring growth.
I haven’t ever grown the Red Dragon arugula, this will be my first year with it. Atomic is great to toss into a super diverse greens mix for salad. Whether they cross or not, I’ll be happy to have some visual and flavor diversity.
So we’ll see how the brassicas fare this year.
. But I do get the visual appeal of nice & Clean but I’ve learned that you can’t have nice thing with animals around. Things gotta be a HUGE Mess for your crop to hide form them (Unless you can build a fence).