The trouble with Broccoli (and other brassicas)

The trouble I've had with brassicas over the past few seasons were explained by a few lines I read recently in a gardening magazine. You see, each year they take forever to grow and then bolt with the early spring warmth before heads are fully formed or big enough. I thought I kept getting them in too late, but I didn't realise that inconsistent watering and feeding (guilty!) can cause them (or indeed any plant) to bolt. Derrr! Well it makes sense now. The plants think they might die and so try to reproduce (flower).

I did however get a couple of very nice savoy cabbages (here's one below) and lots of sprouting broccoli (no waiting for just one flower head).


Bolted Romanesco broccoli - not as impressive as last year's.


Still tasted ok though :)




I've also got some kohlrabi in that I'm about to harvest as they threaten to bolt (with the warm weather this time!) and am intrigued to see what they taste like. They look rather like aliens!!

Where did the year go?

My favourite spinach for 2009 - Southern European Spinach

Well the year flew past and I went through stages of business and laziness with the veggie patch, still managing to produce food even when doing little. The plants that bolted in our unseasonably early warm weather are now producing beautiful seeds for me to collect. At about $2.50 to $3.00 a pack for organic heirloom seeds, the bolting plants are still worth something and then after
seed harvest, they are of course, composted, ready to go back into the veggie patch several months later. I love nature's recycling system!

I tried using toilet rolls for seed germination. I'm not convinced they worked as well as the seeds in the plastic black seedling containers that were probably warmer and germinated more successfully. Also planting the toilet rolls in the ground sounds good, but they take ages to break down. I'd be more inclined to just recycle them. They may also be glued together with something yukky, so I probably won't bother so much with them. I tried putting the seeds in toilet rolls under plastic but that didn't seem to help.

I received a red currant plant as a gift - even in its first season, it produced about 1/3 punnet's worth of currants which went into a glorious summer pudding for a New Year's Eve dinner party (thanks to my partner, a skilled cook).

Some radishes were rather amusing :)

I left the brassicas to grow as long as I could. It was a good thing, too as I was surprised by a huge head of purple broccoli that wasn't there last time I looked!!



Green Mignonette, Australian Yellow Leaf, Purple Oakleaf (not shown) and Forellenschuss (not shown) lettuces provided us with months of greens for yummy fresh salads and they are so easy to grow. The yellow leaf lettuce was the least bitter of all the lettuces, but I like bitter greens anyway - they are very good for you and the slugs and snails don't bother much with them - maybe just some of the outer leaves.

The golden-podded snow-peas continued to give us lovely crisp pods for a number of months, just from growing in a big trough along a sunny trellised wall and I have saved some of the finest peas, ready for next season. Even the neglected broad beans growing near the compost bins (not in the veggie patch) in less prepared soil still produced beans.




The patch goes through stages from partially bare, ready for new plantings, to feral (late spring).


The strawberries (Cambridge Rival) produced strawberries so sweet they almost tasted like sherbert. Sadly though, too much leaf growth, not enough flowers and enthusiastic slugs reduced the yield, but the plants have gone nuts and I will have plenty of runners for next season. I planted them in an elongated, raised mound, covered with hessian to protect from fruit rot and reduce weeds.

I did have more success with carrots this year (and beetroot), but still had trouble getting the seeds to germinate in the first place.

And sometimes the ladybirds in the garden were just having too much fun on on the bok choy flowers!

Seed Saving

As well as finding much enthusiasm for fruit and vegetable gardening, I have begun seed-saving. Don't know where that came from except maybe a deep desire to recycle!

So far I have saved dill seeds, mustard leaf seeds, sage seeds, Russian Black tomato seeds (and some "Granny's Bonnet" (aquilegia) seeds - not a veggie, but very pretty with easy-to-spot seed pods). I dunno if its a response to the 'GFC' (Global Financial Crisis) but there are a lotta people going back to growing their own food. I now have very healthy Russian Black tomato plants from a neighbour's tomatoes from last year - my first seed-saved babies!

I never took much notice of seed pods of plants before. Now they look like gold to me. Next to water and healthy soil, they are the most precious 'commodity' we have.

Above: Russian Black tomatoes (green :))

Below: Mustard seed pods & Dill seed 'umbrels'

Some advantages of saving seeds are that you know the life of the seed's parent and what has been put on the soil (or not - eg. no yukky chemicals or sprays) and by growing well, it may have adapted to its local microclimate and have offspring happy to grow in the same area. And of course it gives you propagation power!

I have been using a book called "The Seedsavers' Handbook", but I have also joined a local seedsaving group to swap seeds and tips.

You can't let everything go to seed at once. For example nearly all brassicas (mustard, bok choi, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc) will cross with each other, so the offspring may not be what you expect!

All-in-all very satisfying and an exercise in patience as seed pods may take months to grow and dry on the plant.