Heirlooms...seed to seed

[MontyJ]

The other day I was doing what most people in the north do this time of year; flipping through the seed catalogs. After some thought, I have made a decision. I often save seeds from heirlooms, mostly tomatoes, beans, peppers. This year I want to go all heirloom and save seeds from everything. My biggest concern is the biennials, carrots, cabbage, etc. Has anyone tried taking these to seed? I would like to have someone share personal experiences with holding over the winter and especially any signs of inbreeding depression.
Discussion anyone?

 

[Smiles Jr.]

I'll be interested in this topic too. There used to be a group of heirloom seed traders here in S.E. Indiana that I belonged to a few years ago but several have moved away and some have died. As a result the group has dissolved and I don't have contact with them anymore.

 

[baymule]

Me too!! I wanna know!!

 

[897tgigvib]

The Cabbages will be easy.

Keep at least two, and they should be the best to head, NOT those that headed last or worst. They should be near each other, where bees and bugs will cross pollinate them. Only the last flowers on the stalks, those highest up have a chance of inbreeding, especially if only a few of the lower ones took. So, snip the last and smallest flowers off the flower stems. They should flower late spring...not sure down south, maybe earlier. Then, simply let them mature and dry, and pick them as they slowly dry.

Remember, Cabbages are natural cross breeders. You can relatively easily, or accidentally cross them with Collards, Cabbage leaved Kales such as Lacinato, Kohlrabi, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, or Cauliflower.

Hybridizing Cabbages is also easy, so long as they flower at the same time. So, if you have a Red Acre, and a January King, and none of the others to mix things up growing near each other, and do the upper flower removals as I suggest, you'll get most all F1 hybrids...that might be pretty cool!

The hardest part is making sure you selected the best, and not simply what was left.


Carrots: Make sure you check the roots of those you want to save seed from. They should be the best. They can be carefully dug for this check, and down there, you can probably transplant those best roots right back, removing some of the outer leaves to reduce the shock. Just grow them well, let them flower, and save their seeds. Hopefully there will be plenty of bees and flower pollinating bugs.

A thing to remember about Carrots. They all cross and self pollinate at random with each other. You can use that info to help make sure you keep them true or to allow yourself to get a mix of hybrids. If you have a rare or hard to get variety try to keep them pure by only saving seeds from those and none others, and check to see if any neighbors may be letting their carrots flower. Probably not.

Thing to watch out for with Carrots: QUEEN ANNE'S LACE will pollinate them also, vigorously and a lot. Either make certain none is growing within a mile...mmm, someone else might say a different distance...or else make sure your patch is in an isolation cage using whatever material is appropriate, probably remay or one of the fine white translucent fabrics like it, nice n large, and make sure some bees are in it.

=====

Things like these going to seed will eventually get ugly, and probably get aphids and other things like that. Do what you need to do to keep them good and healthy to their end.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

The Cabbages will be easy.

Keep at least two, and they should be the best to head, NOT those that headed last or worst. They should be near each other, where bees and bugs will cross pollinate them. Only the last flowers on the stalks, those highest up have a chance of inbreeding, especially if only a few of the lower ones took. So, snip the last and smallest flowers off the flower stems. They should flower late spring...not sure down south, maybe earlier. Then, simply let them mature and dry, and pick them as they slowly dry.

Please help me here. You say 'So, snip the last and smallest flowers off the flower stems.' in one sentence. And then, later, you say 'Then, simply let them mature and dry, and pick them as they slowly dry.'

Do we snip the last and smallest to keep until they mature and dry. Or are we snipping the last and smallest to prune the stalk and we toss the smallest and last into the garbage? I'm easily corn-fused

 

[MontyJ]

Very good advice Marshall.

I cant leave anything in the ground here. Even though I live in West Virginia, we normally get sub-zero temps in the winter. I live in the Northern panhandle, so to understand my weather think Pittsburgh, PA which is only 40 miles east of me or Indianapolis, IN which is 300 miles due west.

For the brassicas I think I will try to seed only one type per year in a rotation. With any luck I can get the broccoli to seed in the first year. I will have to buy seed for the others until they come up in the rotation. I think I read somewhere that many brassicas will not self-pollinate, so I will probably seed 5 or more to maintain vigor. Holding them over the winter is my biggest problem. In the past I have tried leaving a few cabbages in the garden. They all froze solid and rotted as soon as the weather warmed. If time permits, I may try to dig a small root cellar on the back of the property this summer.

None of my neighbors garden but we have lots of Queen Annes Lace, so I will have to use isolation cages around the carrots. For holding, I am considering trimming them back to a couple of inches of foliage and packing them in sand. As with cabbages, I have left carrots in the ground to over-winter, but none survived.

I have started a primary variety list of heirlooms. Ill post it when I get it nearly finalized.

 

[MontyJ]

The Cabbages will be easy.

Keep at least two, and they should be the best to head, NOT those that headed last or worst. They should be near each other, where bees and bugs will cross pollinate them. Only the last flowers on the stalks, those highest up have a chance of inbreeding, especially if only a few of the lower ones took. So, snip the last and smallest flowers off the flower stems. They should flower late spring...not sure down south, maybe earlier. Then, simply let them mature and dry, and pick them as they slowly dry.

Please help me here. You say 'So, snip the last and smallest flowers off the flower stems.' in one sentence. And then, later, you say 'Then, simply let them mature and dry, and pick them as they slowly dry.'

Do we snip the last and smallest to keep until they mature and dry. Or are we snipping the last and smallest to prune the stalk and we toss the smallest and last into the garbage? I'm easily corn-fused

I don't think trimming flowers is a big issue because most brassicas cannot self pollinate. The problem you can run into is inbreeding depression which occurs when you use only 2 plants for polination and seeding. Using several plants will help maintain genetic diversity over time.

 

[897tgigvib]

Ah, Smiles, a test of my verbal and conceptual skills before I had my coffee? Hang on it's almost ready!



Cabbage flowers are a lot like regular wild mustard flowers. A lot like Radish flowers.

Their flowers grow upward, a small bunch of buds at the top. As those buds grow into flowers, new flower buds appear
and grow at the tip.

I got kind of one of those time lapse visuals going in my head Smiles! That was such a cool question you asked. I love it!

It's all less worry than you think. In fact, this whole step most don't consider necessary.

When all this new budding at the tip of the, well, by now it's a flower stalk, is basically done, most of the flowers that first bloomed on the bottom will have withered and pods will be forming. Go ahead and let the stalk finish, but simply snip off the top few flowers. Those top few flowers you snip off, throw them away or eat them.

It's what is left on the plant that you allow to mature and dry.

The cabbage plant in early full flower will be a beautiful sight! Like, three feet tall or more, almost that wide. Might want to give it a stake, don't let it break. Bees and Bumblebees will be buzzing around it, have your camera at the ready.

Thank you for asking the question Smiles! I typed this with a big smile on my face as I drank my coffee!

 

[897tgigvib]

Cabbages and the Brassicas actually can self pollinate, at least some, in a pinch.

Try it sometime. Grow only one, and make sure nothing is around to pollinate it.

Those beautiful bottom flowers on the stalks will make no pods, and all up the stalk, no pods.

Toward the top, smallish pods will begin forming, here and there. Some of the stalks will have smallish pods on them.

As they dry and you harvest them, they'll have a few seeds in them, kind of smaller than normal seeds. Those will grow into inbred runty plants, but viable plants after all. You see, nature finds ways to survive. In a pinch, the Brassica will self pollinate. The plant was able to tell no seeds were being made, so the plant does something to allow its own pollen to pollinate itself.

That's part of the reason I like to remove those top flowers. A few seeds of the top flowers just might maybe could be self pollinated. The other reason is, I found the seeds in the top pods to be usually smaller, so I let the plant spend more energy on fewer pods.

 

[MontyJ]

Good info again Marshall. I was not aware that self pollination was possible under certain circumstances, but it does make sense. In any event I'll be removing the top-most flowers as a safety measure.