What's the best time to take them?
I know this is old post...but here we go...(rather than starting whole new thread again)
Yesterday I took some cuttings from my Asturian Tree cabbage plants (seeds from The Real Seeds). I have often found it makes few non-flowering shoots at the bottom of the plant if one carry on removing flower shoots. It is really handy and I don't need to buy seeds all the time...just few plants will keep me in leaf supply and cuttings are so easy to do.
Real seeds state that this cabbage can be 'short lived perennial' ...but I do tend to take cuttings with all manner of brassicas if they have right kind of material for it...if nothing else 'just to fill some gaps' when some of the seed sown plants have been 'demolished' by the pest. These cabbage plants will be now 3rd 'generation clones' from few, originally seed sown plants. Interestingly I had couple of plants that have grown whole new non flowering branch while other half of the plant is in full bloom!
I take my cuttings and set them in mixture of 1/2 loambased compost + 1/2 MP compost with a little grit/sand for drainage...I set quite long stemmed cuttings in deep trimming the available leaf surface to minimum (leaving just small developing leaf from growing point and half a more mature leaf), putting the individual pots inside clear plastic bucket with lid almost fully on...and placing the bucket somewhere out of direct sun...like darker corner in GH.
I'm now waiting new growth to appear on my late flowering purple sprouting broccoli. One plant was particularly late and had much nicer crop than rest of the plants that all originated from same seed packet. I want more of same broccoli next year
I love when I can pick and choose best type of plants to crop again following year
