Gilbert Fritz

The cabbage grex will probably develop in different directions, depending on the interests and preferences of the individual growers. But my own interest is focused on two traits: overwintering, and resistance to cabbage aphids.

The first is pretty basic; if a cabbage doesn't overwinter, it doesn't produce seeds. Some growers take lots of trouble to overwinter their cabbages, including digging up the whole plant and moving it to a root cellar. But I will be selecting for plants that overwinter in the garden with mulch. Also, since the cabbage head itself just tends to rot, I will be eating the heads, while leaving the outer leaves and stems for overwintering, and selecting for plants that overwinter well like this.

In my garden, cabbage aphids are the biggest problem for brassicas; they stunt the plants and distort the growing tips, and even if the cabbage survive, they tend to be an unpleasant mass of aphids inside. Two of the varieties I included in the grex are supposed to be somewhat cabbage aphid resistant.

As an easily storable green vegetable, cabbage is a very valuable crop. But I've always found the available OP varieties to be somewhat wimpy. That might not be surprising, given that brassicas are particularly susceptible to inbreeding depression. Also, there are relatively few varieties of cabbage available, compared with other vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, melons, and squash.

This situation has inspired me to start a cabbage landrace, and I'm looking for collaborators! I am offering a proto-grex of 16 different cabbage varieties (listed below) to anyone in the USA who is willing to plant them this year for overwintering, who will keep them isolated from other B. oleracea (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, many kales, and kohlrabi) while they are flowering and who will return some of the harvested seed. Eventually, I hope to offer the resulting grex through https://goingtoseed.org/.

PM me your address if you would like to participate, and let me know if you have any questions.

If you are worried about your ability to isolate them from other B. oleracea, remember that time isolation can work. I’m planning to save seed from a broccoli grex in addition to the cabbages, but I will simply eat any broccoli shoots that would overlap with the flowering of the cabbage.

The following varieties are included in the mix:

The Peace Seedlings Belarus Cabbage Grex
Primax
January King
Chieftain Savoy
Amarant
Testa Di Ferro
Charleston Wakefield
Glory of Enkhuizen
Amager
Futog
Danish Ballhead
Mammoth Red Rock
Winter King Savoy
Red Acre
Golden Acre
Brunswick

I want to try making a straw hat, but I'm having trouble finding straw. Straw that has gone through a combine isn't useable, and most modern varieties have very short stalks. If anyone knows of a source, or is growing grain for a food or cover crop and would be willing to part with some straw, please let me know!

Bryant, if I wanted to do something similar, could I just mix some rotted wood chips with the coffee grounds I can get from local coffee shops, and let them sit around in a bin or bucket for a few months before applying them?

In dryland areas, summer fallows are used to store precipitation in the soil for later crops. Traditionally, this involved frequent tilling over the course of the summer to keep down weeds and create a "dust mulch" as a capillary break; this led to problems with erosion. Today, no-till farmers leave crop residue on the soil surface, and use herbicides to suppress growth; this trades erosion for a different set of problems.

Could a chicken tractor be used to maintain a fallow, keeping down weed growth while leaving a light mulch layer on the surface?

Burra, that's interesting. After a hiatus of a few years, I replanted seeds I harvested from the ones you sent me, and planted a diverse range of broccoli and kale next to them. I will be selecting plants that have the overwintering ability and large, flat leaves of your kale plants, but with the clustered seed heads and succulent stems of broccoli.

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

I've got some various mustard greens that I'm saving for seed. They are nearing maturity; the pods are starting to dry and all the plants' leaves have dried up. As fast as the pods dry, however, the birds eat all the seeds. Can I cut the plants now and store them under cover to finish drying?

Thanks for the suggestion, Douglas!

The branches alongside the stump curve out in such a way as to make cutting a slanting cut difficult, but I will see what I can do.

Some of the pictures didn't come through…