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Brassicas - annual or perennial? - help needed please!

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  • #1

    Brassicas - annual or perennial? - help needed please!

    I'd like your help to test a theory I have, please.
    Open to everyone who grows brassicas for their above ground growth (not for their roots).

    I have a hunch that many brassicas are actually perennial but we don't give them chance to be as they're pulled up as soon their "crop" - head, sprouts, leaves etc.- has been taken.
    I've tried several ways of extending the life of brassica plants.

    1. The well known way with cabbages is to cut a cross in the top of the stump, after the head is harvested. 4 small cabbages will grow in its place. This would work with any brassica, I think?

    2. I've laid the stem of the cabbage horizontally, partly covered with soil. The stem will root and throw up new shoots. These can be left in situ or broken off and used as cuttings.

    3. Snapping off side shoots on kales and rooting them into new plants.

    At the moment, the only brassicas I have growingare kales and 9 star perennial broccoli/cauli. If anyone has some sprouts, PSB, cabbages could you humour me and see if you can keep them growing after you've picked the sprouts, shoots, heads please.
    If you've already tried this or think its doomed to failure, please tell me. I'll try not to be upset.
    Last edited by veggiechicken; 22-12-2019, 06:48 PM.
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Most vegetable brassicas are biennial by nature, and they will die after flowering and setting seed.
    If you can prevent them from doing that, they may last longer, though.

    Taking cuttings is cheating, though. Part of the reason plants degrade as they get older, eventually dying, is because the tissue at the base of the plant gets older and older, and eventually is too senile to do it's job of transporting water and nutrient properly. But cuttings are new, fresh growth, and so it's basically a new, young plant.

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    • #3
      VC I've got sprouts so I'll give it a go, not sure how to go about it though.
      Location....East Midlands.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by ameno View Post
        Most vegetable brassicas are biennial by nature, and they will die after flowering and setting seed.
        If you can prevent them from doing that, they may last longer, though.
        I understand that is the theory but the practice, at least in my garden, is quite different. Two of the kales, sown in 2013, have been flowering and seed setting every year since then. One I pulled up this year because it was in my way, the second has a "trunk" that is as thick as my forearm, and is still growing. Photos in 2017 at https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...ml#post1552583



        Originally posted by ameno View Post
        Taking cuttings is cheating, though. Part of the reason plants degrade as they get older, eventually dying, is because the tissue at the base of the plant gets older and older, and eventually is too senile to do it's job of transporting water and nutrient properly. But cuttings are new, fresh growth, and so it's basically a new, young plant.

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        • #5
          I've had late autumn cabbage where I've cut the tops off and the stems fell over (because I was too lazy to pull them out!) they put out new roots along the stem and I got more cabbage heads in late spring just as you've said..

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          • #6
            Not sure if this is the sort of thing you are looking for, but when I grow cavolo nero kale, I just keep picking a few outer leaves each week. This goes on and on, until it becomes impractically tall / gets blown over and I pull it out. After one year, it has a maybe 3ft tall stem. It never flowers, I think because it has to keep investing its energy into making new leaves.
            In theory, if staked, I think it could just keep going. I’m gonna take a picture of the biggest one I’ve got left, as it’s pretty funny looking.

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            • #7
              Thanks Fred - can you see if you can keep it going for a couple of years please?

              Just found this page about Cavolo and propagating it from cuttings, if you want some more plants without going to the trouble of sowing seeds https://ourpermaculturelife.com/everlasting-kale/
              Last edited by veggiechicken; 22-12-2019, 10:50 PM.

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              • #8
                I once grew sprouts in Spain (not something that I ever saw the locals growing). I kept picking them as they formed and they carried on for months and ended at about 5 feet tall. Eventually they blew down in a storm.

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                • #9
                  One of the reasons I stopped growing F1's was because of cost of seed and not being able to save seed from them and get the same quality of plant.
                  I used to grow Sweetheart F1 cabbages but to justify the seed cost I did the old trick of cutting a cross in the cut stem and got five times as many cabbages from a single seed packet. Nowt to do with them being perennial but I wonder if I had cut a cross in the stems of the four cabbages I got from the initial cut whether the cabbage would keep cropping?
                  My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
                  to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

                  Diversify & prosper


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                  • #10
                    PS With clubroot being linked to growing successive brassica crops is perennialization such a good idea?
                    My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
                    to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

                    Diversify & prosper


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                    • #11
                      Maybe I should have called this thread "Brassicas - can their cropping period be extended or can they be propagated without sowing any more seeds or buying seedlings"
                      Too many words methinks


                      Martin Crawford, in his book on perennial vegetables suggests that tall brassicas (broccoli/kale) can be "coppiced" by cutting the stem down to 6"-12" when they will re-shoot.

                      I rather like the thought of a coppice of brassicas, all sprouting into new life. Young leaves for the picking with minimal effort.

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                      • #12
                        Snadgers question is the one I am most interested in re. the clubroot, I had it in the garden in the past and don't want it again, though I have grown very good cabbage in the soil with clubroot I don't know how perennial brassicas would do
                        it may be a struggle to reach the top, but once your over the hill your problems start.

                        Member of the Nutters Club but I think I am just there to make up the numbers

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                        • #13
                          Sorry - no ideas about clubroot as I've not come across it here.
                          Which? says, if you have it, keep growing brassicas in the same spot to avoid spreading it around the garden. https://gardening.which.co.uk/hc/en-...56625-Clubroot

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                          • #14
                            Found these 2 re-sprouting Calabrese today on my allotment (grown in pots as an experiment this year as I'd run out of bed space) and remembered this thread.

                            I had been meaning to clear these pots for a while, but will now see how big the heads are going to get.

                            It's been so mild that everything seems to be growing, there are buds all over the place.

                            Click image for larger version Name: received_407141013343260.jpeg Views: 1 Size: 456.4 KB ID: 2385896
                            Location: London

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                            • #15
                              Looks like you'll be getting a meal or two of those
                              Location....East Midlands.

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