My boyfriend likes to put the veg waste directly into the veg beds, and yesterday I spotted a couple of carrots growing. Will the carrot regrow or will it go to seed or just die?
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Brussels sprouts experiment
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Originally posted by BertieFox View PostI'd seen it in their catalogue but was wondering what was the difference between this and a sprout plant that has just 'blown'....I'd be interested to hear how it grows when you have tried it. I find the sprout shoots in the spring really tasty at a time when there's little else, and you can go on harvesting them for ages.
I'll try to remember to come back for another comment when I've tasted them.The more help a man has in his garden, the less it belongs to him.
William M. Davies
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That's the cabbage
and thats the sprouts Sprout trimmings growing on Twitpic
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New cabbage experiment!!
I know alldigging has already done this - now its my turn
I've removed the outside leaves of a cabbage (? January King), then sliced the core into 5, approx half inch slices. When you look at the slices closely, at the base of each leaf, there is a tiny little leaflet - about 3 to each slice. These, I think, should form new leaves or mini cabbages. They're all going to be stood in water and let's see what happens
Sorry about the photo, but I had to turn the flash off to get any definitionAttached Files
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Sorry to be a pessimist, but most of these brassicas are biennial or annuals, so although they may produce clumps of leaves which will produce roots (which they often do naturally in contact with the soil when a plant falls over), the shoot will still act like the main plant and go to seed at the same time. Of course, the wild parent of many brassicas is a perennnial, as are a few rare types of kales, but even things like Daubentons kale aren't really 'perennial', as the main plant flowers (usually sterile flowers) in the second year, and the new growth comes from where the spreading stems touch the soil and a 'new' plant starts growing. The older parts of the plant die back. I think the real experiments should be done in crossing the semi perennial types with the biennials and hoping this might give rise to cabbage or sprout shoots that really would not only root but grow into 'new' plants. That way, a genetically superior sprout plant, for example, could be 'cloned' to produce a really good crop on all the plants.Last edited by BertieFox; 12-03-2013, 08:05 AM.
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"That's a job for the professionals..... actually, it's very easy to achieve a simple cross, and lots of people are playing around doing it if you look at various forums on line. I think I mentioned a very good American book for amateurs about doing this. What's difficult is creating a stable new variety you can grow on and keep pure once you get it!
I'm all in favour of 'playing around' as that's how most discoveries have been made in the past.
Last year I experimented with peppers and aubergines trying to see if I could root and grow on new plants made from sideshoots as we do with tomatoes. It worked, but the shoots took ages to root, and when they did, the plants were very weak and feeble!
Lots of the so-called conventional wisdom in the books isn't necessarily true. We were always told to top and tail leaves and roots on leeks when transplanting; now they say don't touch the roots. And the latest wisdom to avoid leek moth is to cut them down to ground level and let them grow again.
Good luck with all your experiments.Last edited by BertieFox; 13-03-2013, 08:02 AM.
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an update - the sprouts went into soil in the greenhouse cos they were a bit whiffy on the windowsill.
Cabbage and celery doing well indoors!
Attached FilesLast edited by alldigging; 15-03-2013, 09:50 AM.
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