My two favorite seedlings for this project, which definitely need to be planted out for some more space… First, the pretty Mermaid’s Aurora seedling with the dissected cotyledons:
And then this lovely perennial kale seedling which is a very rich green and shiny like a greasy collard (compared in pic to another “normal” perennial kale seedling from the group.) Most of the seedlings in this batch resemble the matte leaf with varying shades of purple or green on the veins.
I’ve gotten the occasional oddball with 3 cotyledons, or off-shaped/warped ones, but never obviously healthy dissected ones. That plant is doing great, and I’m going to be violating my hands-off tendencies a bit with it to make sure it survives to make seed if possible.
Is this because of all the Diversity & wide crossing?
Feels like the Landrace Gardening style creates more opportunities for these fun happy little accidents to occur!
It’s possible. As I understand it, the Mermaid’s Aurora was a cross between Hen Peck Collards and a cabbage that was itself a result of breeding between purple and green cone-headed cabbages. So there’s a little diversity there already, and this might have been a little bit of serendipity popping out of the crosses. I’m going to be keeping an eye on the offspring for this trait, just in case it’s something cool and not a random one-off.
I’m about to plant out the rest of my perennial kale keepers today… a friend is taking half a dozen of the “fine, but don’t look like anything special” ones, and the community garden will be getting a couple, with the rest of the ones I held back for myself put into my main garden at home. And the surviving Reckless Oleracea starts from 2024 and 2025 GTS Kale+ mixes that I’ve properly abused (minimal watering, temperature swings, etc) are all going to be planted out in a “may the odds be in your favor” bed… after that, whatever lives, lives. Lol
I am sad. Something has decided some of my brassicas are delicious, and has been eating them down to the ground. I lost the one with the fancy cotyledons, and the greasy collard-looking perennial kale may have been lost, too, though it may still have a chance. Others are doing fine so far, so I haven’t lost everything, but I did lose most of my favorites. Such is the way of the benign neglect garden, I suppose.
I had been working my garlic population for 7 years. Seven. And, well,
like cells regenerating in the body, pocket
gophers decided I had been working for
them
the entire time
I haven’t had the heart to start anew (or maybe I’m too lazy to double dig and line w hardware cloth)
how do we solve these animal problems?
It’s not possible to grow more than the animals can handle thus always ensuring you have some when they literally eat every plant you have
No wonder people do hunting/traping
This is why I don’t do much gardening, even in pots cuz deer/groundhogs/squirrels eat anything I grow anyways. It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one that has these animal issues.
How do we as gardeners keep the motivation to keep gardening knowing that animals will eat everything you grow anyways, how do you motivate yourself to work for zero ROI?
The most ROI action becomes not gardening at all, which is sad
Well, with this particular gopher problem I’m starting anew. And, this time, I’m going to try to ensure they can’t dig under my beds to swipe the bulbs. I’m going to double dig down, essentially, and lay a foundation of 1/4” hardware cloth. I also found the rogue population of the bulbs they stole and didn’t consume or take into the forest or somewhere out of my view. I harvested all the bulbils - it appears to be a representative collection of my original population. I’ll plant these out this fall in hopes of getting those single cloves next year. Then I’ll go for the heads.
It’s a road bump on the journey.
In the future, perhaps I need to give the gophers a throne of bulbs they can take and move around to their hearts’ content. The pocket gophers are a real menace out this way. It is what it is. I also try to have fun with some of it - they move things allllllll over.
Get a snake. I had terrible gophers and tried everything, traps, I didn’t use poison due to having dogs. I tried the sonic noise makers and they only worked for about a month. Drought conditions and rainfall of about 4 inches annually makes my greenhouse prime gopher feeding ground. Then a 5 foot long rosey boa constrictor moved in….problem solved. I still get a little damage but nothing like I had before the snake showed up. I think she is happy and will raise her babies in the greenhouse.
Nice!!! I think you’re right, inviting some predators of your plant-eating pests is probably the best solution — as long as the predators you invite are harmless to humans. I’ve seen two rubber boas in my yard now, and I love them. They’re harmless to humans, beautiful creatures, and they eat rodents. I’m thrilled that they’ve decided to move in to my yard!
We love snakes for keeping the mice and gophers in check. My big Rosey is about 5 feet long and very gentle. I do not bother her, hopefully she will find a mate and produce some little snakes.
I recently spotted a lovely black snake in my back yard, and unsurprisingly I’m having fewer issues with voles since then. I imagine the pretty scaly baby is looking a bit well fed at this point! Previous to this, we mostly just had tiny lined snakes, since our landscaping is perfect habitat for them.
On the reckless oleracea mix front, there are a number of perennial kales in my jungle of garden space that have managed to survive the harlequin beetles, cabbage moths/caterpillars, and the like quite well. And a few brussels sprouts that held on surprisingly well, too! I’m sad to have lost so many of the unique plants to pests early on, but happy to still have something to show for this year’s efforts. The real test will be this winter, seeing what survives/thrives.
I think snakes may like having shady spaces with lots of mulch, like wood chips and sticks and autumn leaves. Both of the snakes I’ve seen in my yard have been in a spot that matched that description. Of course, maybe it’s just that their prey like living in places like those, so snakes go there to eat.
Sadly, my kale plant that managed to flower and produce seeds for two years in a row is now dead. I think it was probably too much disturbance of its roots, because my son was digging around that area a lot, but it could just have been that it was at the end of its lifecycle after year three.
Happily, I have a few more kale plants that have happily leafed out again after producing seeds this year, and one of them even started flowering again in autumn! So my kale population continues to grow, and I will keep planting those from-perennial-mothers seeds.
Gopher snakes are specifically adapted to preferentially feed on gophers. Unfortunately, a lot of modern people tend to kill all snakes they see. This leads to overpopulation of gophers. If you have enough space to ensure that some random person won’t murder the snakes, re-introducing gopher snakes would help control the gopher population.
how do we solve these animal problems?
They’re harmless to humans, beautiful creatures, and they eat rodents. I’m thrilled that they’ve decided to move in to my yard!
