GARDENING CABBAGEHydroponic Guide - Growing Vegetables
Cabbages are easily grown throughout the year. Cabbages like most Vegetables will grow in most hydroponic systems but need space. You will find that it is best to space out your planting.
NOW HERE IS SOME VERY GOOD DATA ON CABBAGE
FOOD CHANGES
Reports of modern agricultural scientists imposing changes upon the food plants we eat are frequently in the news. While the rate of change in the plants we grow may be more rapid today than ever before, we should not forget that humans have imposed changes upon the plants we have grown for thousands of years.
In fact, some of the more outstanding changes that human have made in crop development have not been made as a part of a planned research strategy, but have been accomplished by the simple act of collecting seeds from those plants we like the most, and growing them more frequently than the plants we don't like quite as much. The simple act of choosing one plant over another when propagating has an enormous effect on the improvement of a particular crop or plant, and long before people had a clear understanding of plant genetics, simple selection of desirable traits in the plants began to develop vast improvements had been made. By simply selecting one plant over another when propagating, small differences can slowly be introduced into a population, with the small changes accumulating over time to produce some dramatic results..
Our common cabbage-like vegetables provide an excellent example of remarkable crop improvements that was accomplished by simple long-term selection with no real goal in mind, but simply by people growing those plants that had the features that they most desired. Although they appear very different, kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts are all the same species of plant. These plants are all known botanically as members of the species Brassica oleracea. The only difference between these plants are the differences that were introduced over thousands of years of human cultivation and selective propagating.
In the wild, the Brassica oleracea plant is native to the Mediterranean region of Europe, and is somewhat similar in appearance to a leafy canola plant. Sometime, soon after the domestication of plants began, people in the Mediterranean region began growing this first ancient "cabbage" plant as a leafy vegetable. Because leaves were the part of the plant which were consumed, it was natural that those plants with the largest leaves would be selectively propagated for next year's crop. This resulted in large and larger-leafed plants slowly being developed as the seed from the largest-leafed plants was favoured. By the 5th century B.C., continued preference for ever-larger leaved had led to the development of the vegetable we now know as kale. Kale is known botanically by the name Brassica oleracea variety acephala which translates to mean "cabbage of the vegetable garden without a head.
Kale continued to be grown as a leafy vegetable for thousands of years, and is still grown today.
As time passed, however, some people began to express a preference for those plants with a tight
cluster of tender young leaves in the centre of the plant at the top of the stem.
Because of this preference for plants in which there were a large number of tender leaves
closely packed into the terminal bud at the top of the stem, these plants were selected and
propagated more frequently. A continued favouritism of these plants for hundreds of successive
generations resulted in the gradual formation of a more and more dense cluster of leaves at the
top of the plant. Eventually, the cluster of leaves became so large, it tended to dominate the whole plant,
and the cabbage "head" we know today was born. This progression is thought to have been complete in the 1st century A.D.
This plant was named Brassica oleracea variety capitata, which translates to "cabbage of the vegetable garden with a head."
As time passed, however, some people began to express a preference for those plants with a tight
cluster of tender young leaves in the centre of the plant at the top of the stem.
Because of this preference for plants in which there were a large number of tender leaves
closely packed into the terminal bud at the top of the stem, these plants were selected and
propagated more frequently. A continued favouritism of these plants for hundreds of successive
generations resulted in the gradual formation of a more and more dense cluster of leaves at the
top of the plant. Eventually, the cluster of leaves became so large, it tended to dominate the whole plant,
and the cabbage "head" we know today was born. This progression is thought to have been complete in the 1st century A.D.
This plant was named Brassica oleracea variety capitata, which translates to "cabbage of the vegetable garden with a head."
At about the same time, in a part of Europe near modern Germany, kale plants with short fleshy stems were being selected, resulting in fatter and fatter stems. Selection on this basis eventually led to the ancestral "cabbage" plant developing into the vegetable we know as kohlrabi. The kohlrabi plant was named by botanists as Brassica oleracea variety caulorapa, with the last word meaning, "stem turnip." Both cabbage and kohlrabi have been cultivated for about two thousand years.
Some time in the past thousand years, as a preference developed in southern Europe for eating the immature flower buds of these plants. Selection pressure favouring production of plants with large tender flowering heads was imposed by some growers. By the 15th century, the modern vegetable we know as cauliflower had developed. About a hundred years later, broccoli had been generated in Italy. Cauliflower is named Brassica oleracea variety botrytis, with the last part of the name referring to the fact that a cauliflower curd is was thought to resemble a bunch of grapes. Because broccoli was developed in Italy, it was named Brassica oleracea variety italica.
Finally, in the 18th century, selections of cabbage plants which produced a large number of large, tightly packed leafy buds along the main stem were made in Belgium. These became known as Brussels sprouts and were named Brassica oleracea variety gemmifera, meaning "garden cabbage bearing gems."
From the example with cabbage, we can see that without detailed knowledge of plant breeding or genetics, simple selection by the people growing the plant over seven thousand years, led to the development of six dramatically different vegetables which are all members of the same species, Brassica oleracea.Vegetables, Hydroponic Gardens, Gardens, Self Watering, cabbage.
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