Counting my Chickens !

[oxbowfarm]

Here's a pic of my main planting of breeders for next years planned breeding projects.


I've got 5 varieties of Portuguese Couve Tronchuda given to me by Grunt. De Valhascos, Penca Pao de Acucar, Penca De Chaves, Gloria de Portugal, and Bacalan Grande.
I especially like the De Valhascos, Chaves, and Bacalan Grande for vigor and color. I am considering incorporating one or more of them into my savoy collard project. The rest I'm figuring on letting them mass cross to have a Oxbow Couve landrace type deal and see if I can select for my conditions, which are certainly different from Portugal.

I've got two different strains of Lacinato Kale (I think) one from Franchi seeds via Seeds of Italy and the other from Southern Exposure seed exchange. I've been unhappy with the productivity of Lacinato, but have recently discovered that I may have been managing it wrong and will be trying some new techniques. But I plan on block planting the two strains and collecting a bunch of my own seed. I'll also be using some of the plants in my savoy collard project and another project to create my own version of Alan Kapuler's "Steely Green Kale" by crossing Lacinato with Green Glaze collard.

I've also got a bunch of baby Green Glaze and some selected plants from my main crop planting heeled in here. I'm going to try saving seed from Green Glaze, and using it for the Steely Green project and my own version of "Ray's Colourful Collards" I'll be crossing it separately with Red Express cabbage and Red Bull Brussels Sprout to get some red glazy F1 material to start selcting from.

I also have a little strip of Ray's Colourful Collard growing out, I planted the whole lot of seed he gave me. Those are the survivors on the right side just above the my stylish shadow. I've already culled for non glazed and for non red, what is left is as glazy and red as they can get. We'll see if they make it through the winter.

Just north of the strip of Ray's collard is a strip of Eastham Turnip that I got from Paquebot. None of them are big enough to call turnips, but I figured I'd let them grow and flower and get some bulked seed to plant next summer for a real trial of this special turnip/rutabaga. I couldn't wait to plant it! What can I say.

North of the Eastham is a total blankout where I had planted an entire packet of a collard that was not viable. Considering the fantastic germ I got from Eastham, Ray's and Grays all planted in the same row on the same afternoon, I know it was the seed and not operator error.

North of the blank I've got a healthy row of Gray's Best Collard from my buddy Gray down south of the Mason Dixon where they drink tea like hummingbirds. ;D

The only other stuff i've got is a strip of curly kales, winterbor, redbor, and Rainbow Lacinato. I'm thinking of letting them mass cross and just having a curly kale grex instead of buying them seperately anymore. I don't find people buy one color more than the other.

The last thing I have is a bunch of little plants of Russian Frills kale, a Tim Peters variety I got via Adaptive Seeds. I"ve also heeled in several plants from my main crop planting that were especially frilly and nice. Here is a crappy photo of one of them.


In an email with Tim he said I'd need to actively select for frillyness to maintain it, so I added in the extra frillers.

I also have one odd plant from my maincrop Russian Frills that was a bizarre off type. It was not as frilly, much lighter green but enourmous and super productive. Much more mustardy as well, I'm heeling it in and will isolate it and hope it will self pollinate, B. napus are supposed to self pollinate to some degree. In the top pic its the pale green thing right at the center bottom of the photo.

So they are all put to bed now, the row cover is over the hoops and I've got it the plastic stretched . I ended up burying the ends vs rocking them. The soil seems to be more wind resistant than rocks. Still in the learning curve for the winter low hoops. So here's counting my chickens for next years brassica breeding. With any luck I can start yanking these guys out and start hassling all my friends for garden space to do my isolated crosses. Many many thanks to Raymondo, Paquebot, and Grunt for the seeds.

[grunt]

For holding the cover on securely, put on a couple of shoulder lines under the plastic, and run cross lines parallel to the hoops over the top of the plastic = drive pegs into the ground to tie the cross lines to. The plastic should be secure up to about 25 mph wind. this album will give you an idea of what I am talking about.
picasaweb.google.com/108421163807481105353/Hoophouse

[oxbowfarm]

Grunt,
Those are really nice. Pretty much mini caterpillar tunnels. Mine end up being a bit simpler due to the fact that I don't actually intend to access them until I take the plastic off. I'll try and get a picture of what it looks like covered.

The main change I made from last year was I added a line of paracord running at the top of each hoop from end anchor to end anchor. The issue I had last year was having so much snow build up on them that if the hoop wasn't perfectly vertical, the pressure would slowly push the hoop over and flatten sections of the low tunnels. The idea is that the line which is wrapped around the hoops will prevent this by holding them in place and by adding a kind of ridge to the hoop to encourage the snow to break and slide a bit.

I forgot one other thing in the bed. I have a row of savoy cabbage for my savoy collard project as well. The idea is to cross Lacinato with the savoy cabbage to see what happens.

We'll see how they do.

[12540dumont]

Hey Tim, Have you seen the new Johnny's Catalog. They have a cool track for the hoops. They also have a cross between a brussel sprout and kale.

Personally, I can't abide b.s. and I don't much care for kale, so I'm not going to plant this, but it's very attractive and I bet my vegetarian customers would love this.

However, I have learned something from Grunt, and I know that if I can't stand a vegetable, it will certainly die here. Whereas a vegetable that I love can be half eaten by a gopher and manage to put on a brilliant show.

[cortona]

a cross calexbrusselsprout? and wath is the reusult? it is an f1 or a stable variety?

[raymondo]

Nice lot brassica developments happening there Tim. The red glaze plants probably could do with another dose of red but all in good time.

[12540dumont]

www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8665-kaleidoscope-mix-f1.aspx

It's an f/1
Kaleidoscope Mix (F1)

(Brassica oleracea)



Flower sprouts are a cross between Brussels sprouts and kale which, unlike Brussels sprouts, remain open and resemble attractive, colorful flowers. They grow on tall, upright plants just like Brussels sprouts. The tender, mildly flavored sprouts have an excellent eating quality and are suitable for sales to high-end restaurants and specialty markets. They are excellent lightly steamed or sautéed. One marketing suggestion is to sell them in clam shells. Not quite as hardy to cold weather as Brussels sprouts or kale. This mix contains three varieties (40% Flower Sprout™ Green, 40% Flower Sprout™ Purple, and 20% Flower Sprout™ Bicolor). Avg. 90,000 seeds/lb. Packet: 40 seeds.

Days to Maturity or Bloom: 90

So, all I was saying, is that I think you'll could create the same thing

[cortona]

yep it seems doable, all i 've to do is find someone around that grow brussel sprouts....ad look at a way to cross wit my lacinato kale or something similar, a question, is brussel something that flower easily? i have no idea, we in the family dont like brussel so never grow it!

[oxbowfarm]

Holly,
I saw the moveable caterpillar tunnels they are promoting. They look really slick. But I have decided to not use quonset style high tunnels due excess labor sweeping snow off the roof in my climate. I finagled a way to use the same 12 foot hoop bender to construct the 16 foot gothic hoop you can see in the middle and left of the photo above. All my hoophouses are moveable but I can't afford the fancy track system, it looks really sweet though. I use wheels that I attach along the rails and then remove once the house is moved. In the above pic, the house directly above the brassica bed was on the blank spot right above the bed, then I moved it north to where it is in the pic to cover the spinach for the winter. The plan is to move it March 1st or so onto the berries which are under the rowcover. The other thing I don't like about the caterpillar tunnels is the stooping under the plastic and all the ropes. My houses have a nice door and rollup sides. I'm sure the Johnny's tunnels are much easier to construct than my houses and I'm certain they are way less of a futzy hassle to move, but mine are bigger and cheaper, which is a phrase that works on yours truly every time.

[12540dumont]

Tim, The only reason I was thinking about it was, that I HATE crawling under those to weed. I was just sighing over the way it would be great if I could roll them out of the way for a day and then put them back...

Then I could hoe, or sit on my wee stool and weed.

I love the hoopbender. We call it "Bender". Look what I made with them last year. I used the bricks to help collect heat. And moved started plants out into them. I should have put the plastic under the bricks as well, as they really sprouted their own crop.

We only used the plastic to cover them at night and on cold days. From the plastic, we switched to remay and they left them alone for a few days and finally transplanted.

I have found a lot of uses for these hoops. I used them a lot last year.

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[oxbowfarm]

Yes the conduit benders are very nice. I really like the winter low hoop system for my microclimate once I work out the bugs of the snow load issue which is fairly minor, I had several hundred feet of them last winter and only about 3 individual hoops got pushed over by the snow so I think the top cord should handle that.

Incidentally, the benders that Johnny's is selling are nice and fairly reasonably priced but Johnny's really kills you with shipping. If you buy them direct from the manufacturer they offer free shipping at the same base price (and no they didn't pay me to say that). It is also pretty easy to make your own bender, esp for the conduit benders out of a few curved peices of plywood of the appropriate radius and some kind of bracket attached to a flat surface. The hoophouse benders can be made yourself as well, but they are so cheap from Lost Creek that it didn't make sense to DIY in this case. I did have to cobble together a homemade bender for the "gothic" bend at the peak.

[12540dumont]

Lost Creek would not ship them to me last year. They referred me to Johnny's. To ship it to CA cost more than the Bender itself!

When I order from MOFA, I have the same problem. Getting anything to CA cost an arm and sometimes a leg.

Now, I want a gothic arch!

[12540dumont]

The rolling ones would make an awesome chicken pen. I could plant in a long linear row, and just keep rolling them down to the next section.

We did try the hoops with chicken wire. They only work with cross support. If you find a manufacturer that makes this cheaper, do tell!

[templeton]

Check out the hoops on this site - (sorry, haven't figure out how to upload photos to a post - if anyone can tell, pm, please)
www.kerilea.co.nz/commercial.html#film

These hoops are made from Gal steel, are 'M' in cross section, with a spring wire that simply clips into the top groove of the 'M'.
Really stable, strong, and easy to use.
T