Re-arranging the forum structure???

[orflo]

I'm having a bit of problems with the structure of the forum, and I see other people have sometimes problems placing a topic under the right forum name...
What I would propose is to make some specific ' plant family' based structure, for example solanaceaes, (or: tomatoes, peppers and other solanaceaes); cucurbitaceaes, fabaceaes for beans and peas and other stuff, which are now a bit locked in the cucurbit section, and so on. Now, I know, Alan, you have to do the re-arrangement, so that's up to you to decide if it's really necessary. I see there's a forum 'garden pictures and design', not used a lot, because everyone places pictures in the topic they are discussing... And I have problems placing all these lesser known stuff I talk about under a 'exotics' name, some of these things happen to be less exotic than pepper or tomato, which are in fact already generally accepted and totally integrated exotics. If I want to tell something about for instance skirret, which was a fairly widely grown vegetable in Europe in the Middle-Ages, I can only place this in the general garden banter (this should be for other things), or in this exotic place, where it certainly doesn't belong...
Now, I do realise everybody wants an 'own' forum structure, and I'm taking a risk placing this here , if everybody has an own alternative opinion , we better stay with the current situation.
This is in fact just a thought that came up when I was searching a place for some tree tomato relatives, and (again) I was confronted with the difficullty of finding the right place. I didn't think this over thoroughly, so ignore it or not, I don't care, ... ;D ;D ;D,

[Alan]

I hope everyone enjoys the new forum layout, if there are any suggestions just let me know, but I think this should make things just a little easier.

[MikeM]

And here I'm wondering what you might have against Brassicas

[Alan]

LOL, not a thing, as I matter of fact, I love them! Quite possibly the most under rated tribe of garden vegetables!

[canadamike]

I agree, and we have to rehabilitate the art of the fart too, if we are going big on them... ;D

[Alan]

True, this time of the year my family finds it hard to live with me.

[michaeljohnson]

It's always better to get a good dog, you can take out with you in the car as well- as those real Brussel sprouters can always be blamed on the dog, many is the time we drove for miles with our heads hanging out of the window gasping for air- that dogs got broad shoulders and a straight face.

[canadamike]

[MikeM]

lotsa LOLs... (sorry -- been away from the 'net for the past week or so...) In more serious vein... There's forums for folk breeding Solanums; there's forums for folk breeding Legumes,... where are the people breeding new Brassicas? I know that a whole lot of people consider them "difficult", but for me they're really easy! Granted they need a bunch of space, but, as I was harvesting a whole LOT of Cabbage seed this morning (Cape Spitz, a conical-heading, medium sized Cabbage) I was thinking that, but for a whole bunch of experimental gardeners before me, I would not be harvesting these. Nor the Kohlrabi in the next bed. Nor the Tat Soi. Nor the Pak Choi. Nor...

(Anybody wanting seed from these Cabbages -- and they're really tasty! -- drop me a line!)

Anybody working on breeding new Brassicas??

[canadamike]

Yes, my dear. Alan is . And I am trialing them a lot, will do so even more next year, to determine what will go in there. Winter cabbages here and Indiana are two very different animals. I sent Alan many old cultivars from Europe to grow this year, I am still in an expansion phase.

Of interest to you, I will soon receive 3 accessions of wild heading cabbage from Russia, formerly classified as Brassica subspontaneus but now brassica oleacera var. capitata.

Would you consider them ? Seeds going your way should you be interested.

I'd love to have seeds from your baby. Conical heads interest me a lot. For some reason they are my favorite!!

Must have been a cone head in a previous life...

Go there just for fun, watch what they did:

www.wildgardenseed.com/

Michel

[grungy]

Please count me in for some of the seeds you are offering. This we have only lots of varieties of tomato and a few squash seeds to offer in exchange.
Cheers,
Val / grungy

[PatrickW]

Mike M: I'd be interested in some seeds too.

Conical-heading is very popular here, almost as popular as ordinary cabbage. It's often used in stir-frys among other things. Here it's called spitskool, something like 'cabbage with a peak'. It usually has a lot more flavor than ordinary cabbage.

[canadamike]

I do not see a problem, there should be enough. I sure hope so....

[MikeM]

And here I was thinking "I've harvested far too many of these seeds... Waaaaayyy more than I can ever use." But maybe not! (Patrick: ignore my PM -- now I've connected the dots... saw your PM before I read the forum. And, Yes, here they're also commonly referred to as Spitskool -- something to do with being a Dutch colony for 300-odd years ;-)

I'm happy to send some Cape Spitz seed to all who have expressed interest -- just let me have mailing addresses and I'll get it done on my next trip into town. They won't be this latest seed-harvest, so germination percentages may be down; it'll be a long while before the seed pods even dry off. Of course the room I use for seed storage & drying smells *charming* right now ;-)

[canadamike]

There are 2 Mikes here . I suspect you are referring to me Patrick?


Michel