THE OTHER DAY as I was plotting who I could ask for help outsmarting the coming season’s cabbage worms, and coaxing the Brussels sprouts to fatten up on time for holiday meals, I got an email from organic seed farmer and breeder Don Tipping of Siskiyou Seeds in Oregon.
You might remember Don from his last visit to the program, when he taught me how to grow onions like a pro from seed, one of the most popular subjects ever on my show and website. Well, apparently Don had somehow heard what was on my mind, because he wrote to suggest a conversation about what he calls Brassica success tips. Serendipity.
Don Tipping has been growing and selling wholesale seed on his farm called Seven Seeds for about 20 years, and in 2009 started a retail seed company as well, Siskiyou Seeds, offering his own seed and also the best varieties from a number of organic seed-farming friends. Don also hosts a five-day Seed Academy each spring, teaching farmers, gardeners, and others to have success with seed, breeding, propagating, growing, harvesting, and saving.
On the subject of Brassicas, we talked about things like this:
How thinking back to the Mediterranean origins of the plants gives some clues to success. Why stingy soil volume in tiny cellpacks doesn’t suit the likes of broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts. How to satisfy these hungry crops naturally, so they thrive. What to do to try to outsmart flea beetles and cabbage worms. What in the world a “tree collard” is and who can grow one.
Read along as you listen to the Jan. 22, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
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Living and working in northwestern Oregon, garden designer Wesley Younie is no stranger to dealing with challenging environments. When presented with this garden’s elevation changes, drainage management, and extreme climate conditions, he devised a plan that addresses it all—along with a specific functional wish list from the homeowners. Want to know which plants he used? Here are the plant IDs for this beautiful, sustainable landscape.
I have found a new commitment to growing and eating Brussels sprouts. From 3 or 4 plants last year I ate several hearty meals including a socially distanced Christmas (not because of any sprout side effects).
1. Don’t skip the part about digging the trench, which one Cornell University bulletin describes as a W-furrow (illustrated below). Some people simply dig an 18-inch-wide by 12-inch-deep trench and spread the roots out flat in the bottom. In a W-furrow, a ridge of soil hoed into place down the middle (in this case of a shallower trench, just 6-8 inches deep) supports the spider-like roots.2. Don’t bury the crowns all at once, but rather fill the trench in gradually as the topgrowth develops through the first season.3. Don’t forget to water as the crowns make their way to establishing a deep root system. Details on planting and careare here.Picking4. Don’t pick too soon from a new planting. Some sources say you can pick a little starting one
Like all of Ken’s 18 books (!!!), “Making More Plants: The Science, Art and Joy of Propagation” is rich in instruction, but also visually arresting, since he’s an award-winning photographer, too. It covers the botany of propagation—the why’s behind how you can make more plants of a particular species sexually or asexually or both—because as Ken says:“It is not essential to learn about botany to garden well; it’s inevitable.”Then in words and intimate pictures he covers virtually every tactic for doing so, from seed-sowing to leaf and root cuttings, to layering, grafting, division and more. The photos are so beautiful, and Ken’s obvious enthusiasm so evident on every page, that I want to try everything. (Just what I nee
(They’re also really beautiful, if you look at them up close–but beautiful in the way that Japanese beetles are beautiful, meaning not enough for me to count them as beloved pets and keep them around or anything.) Squish!The cross-striped cabbage worm larvae are sort of blue-gray, and as their name suggests striped across their bodies. Not so many years back, it was more a pest in Southern farms and gardens, but has gradually made its way to southern New England, at least. I read up on them in various places–U-Mass Amherst; at the University of Georgia, and so on–and what I conc
THE PROMISE OF ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS is what keeps me from turning under much of the vegetable garden, after record rains brought havoc to some crops. I’ve harvested five cherry tomatoes and as many beans so far, sigh, in a season that began with an abundance of asparagus but then fizzled.
The pre-Columbian Indians of the Andes domesticated more starchy root crops than any other culture, but only the potato caught on as a staple worldwide.“The others have seldom been tried outside South America, yet they are still found in the Andes and represent some of the most interesting of all root crops.…” said a 1989 report called “Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation” from the National Research Council.“They come in myriad colors, shapes, and sizes,” the report added. “T
IN SOME THINGS lonerism backfires, like when the ladder needs steadying to get at the top of an errantly sprouting espalier, or a truckload of eight cubic yards of mulch is dumped by the far gate. Though ordering seeds is not heavy work, it is best not done alone, either; I have always had a companion for the task. My latest one, of considerable years’ duration, got it in his head to move to Oregon recently, for greener garden pastures, taking with him not just the in-person dimension of our friendship, but also access to the nearby greenhouse that was, of course, a perfect complement to the shopping we did together all that time.“I’ll buy the tomato seeds if you’ll grow them,” the conversation with Andrew would always begin, as if he needed my ten- or fifteen-dollar annual enticement, when of course we never really paid careful mind to who bought what or really kept a running tab of our years-long botanical barter. It hardly mattered; what counted was the chance to look together, to compare notes, to react collaboratively to the possibilities—ooh! aah! ugh!—and eventually to relish the harvest (or to commiserate when something was a flop and there was no harvest, or
She is someone I have often heard called a mentor and inspiration by some of my most respected garden friends, especially in the Pacific Northwest. No wonder, because Corvallis, Oregon-based Carol Deppe–also the author of the popular book “The Resilient Gardener”–is pragmatic, but also scientific in her approach, armed not only with precisely the right hoe for the job but also with a PhD in biology from Harvard and a long background in plant breeding.Read along as you listen to the March 30, 2015 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here). We talked about choosing vegetables to grow in combination (and when some crops are most productive and easiest grown alone); about strategic steps to avoid late blight
John, whose dramatic and delicious purple ‘Dragon’ carrot is bright orange inside, was reassuring as ever. First, don’t feel bad, he said. “Carrots are one of the harder vegetables to grow,” confirms John (with flowering carrots in an OSA photo, above), and for a few reasons:They’re such small plants when they first sprout (the seed isn’t too big, either; I like to use pelleted, shown below, and there are now pelleted ones that meet organic certification requirements).To get really good quality you need “unchecked growth”—no obstacles either literal (like rocky or otherwise tough soil) or meteorological (extremes of heat, cold or especially dryness). “Succulence and flavor wi