Sunday, May 5, 2013

Woad Morsinko


Viime syksynä jätin leikkaamatta kaksi morsinkoa ja ne ovat talvehtineet parhaiten. Ruusukkeet paljastuivat vihreinä lumen sulettua ja nyt on jo keskellä uusia lehtiä tulossa. Jos kaikki menee hyvin, niin ne kukkivat kunnolla ja saan niistä paljon uusia siemeniä.

IN ENGLISH
Last autumn I left couple of woad plants without harvesting the leaves, and they have survived the winter best. The rosettes came out of snow green and now there are new leaves emerging from the middle. If everything goes well I will have a good crop of new seeds from these plants


Myös osa kasveista, joista korjasin lehtisadon vielä lokakuussa, on alkanut kasvattaa uusia lehtiä juuresta. Kuva on otettu auringonpaisteessa, ja edellinen oli varjossa, siitä väriero lehdissä.

IN ENGLISH
Also some plants which were harvested in October, have started to grow new leaves from the roots. This picture was taken in bright sunlight, the first one was in shade, that's why the leaves look different in color.


Penkissä oli myös paljon tällaisia koloja: Myyrä oli syönyt talven aikana lumen alla morsinkojen juuret!
Niillä oli hyvät oltavat, kun oli paljon lunta suojana, ja ruokaa tarjolla.
Tämähän ei morsinkojen osalta haittaa, kun kuitenkin muutama kasvi säilyi siementuotantoa varten. Tänä keväänä kylvetyt siemenet ovat jo itämässä:).

IN ENGLISH
In the woad bed there were lots of holes like this. The voles had eaten the woad roots during the winter. We had lot of snow so it was good cover for the voles, and  good food for them to eat.. my woad.
It doesn't matter, a few plants survived to produce seeds, and I have new woad already germinating:)


Viime vuonna kasvatin myös kiinalaista morsinkoa (Isatis indigotica), joka on periaatteessa indigopitoisempi, mutta toisaalta vähäsatoisempi lehtien suhteen kuin tavallinen morsinko (Isatis tinctoria). Täällä postaus aiemmilta vuosilta siitä. Lisäksi viime alkukesä oli niin viileä, että harsosta huolimatta kiinalaiset morsingot alkoivat kukkia, enkä saanut lehtisatoa ollenkaan. Olinkin ajatellut, etten enää kasvata sitä, se ei meidän kesässämme ole tarpeeksi luotettava ja tavallinen morsinko on kuitenkin varmempi.
Viime vuonna kukkavarret jäivät sinne penkkiin ja nyt huomasin rykelmän taimia niiden alla. Nämä näyttävät ihan sen taimilta! Mitähän nyt oikein tekisin näiden kanssa, kun kaikki käytettävissä oleva tilakin on jo varattu muille kasveille. Jospa jättäisin vain pari tainta kasvamaan ja katson sitten alkavatko nekin taas kukkia heti, eivätkä tuota lehtiä.

IN ENGLISH
Last summer I grew also chinese woad (Isatis indigotica), which in principle has more indigo in it's leaves than woad (Isatis tinctoria), but produces less leaves (at least here). Here is a post about it from earlier years. Early summer last year was so cool here that in spite of the horticultural fleece which covered the plants, the temperature was too low and chinese woad started to flower early, and I didn't get any leaves from it. I had already decided that I don't grow it anymore. Ordinary woad is more reliable here.
I had left the flower stalks in the bed, and now I noticed a bunch of seedlings coming up! These look just like chinese woad seedlings. I don't know what I am going to do with them, I don't have any free space left to plant them, but perhaps I will let couple of them to grow and see how they will do this summer.

5 comments:

  1. Leena, thanks for the indepth description and the pictures of your woad.
    To my surprise, I also found the two woad plants I hadn't cut down last autumn to survive the snowy winter with dark green leaves. They then produced stalks, I cut one down and left the other grow very tall and produce buds at the moment. The other one is getting leafy - may I hope to get some blue from it?
    The third plant I had was cut down to the earth in autumn and produced a single small stalk (less than 50 cm) with flower buds. The fourth that had also been cut down completely disappeared, and the fifth I had dug out froze so it's gone. I only managed to grow five plants last year, all other seedlings were promptly eaten by mice, grrr.
    The seeds for this year are still germinating in my living room. I don't want to plant them outside too early - yesterday we had bad hails in several places in Slovenia, the hailstones were the size of large green peas hereabout. I haven't yet seen whether there was much damage done in the garden.

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  2. Thank you Yvette and Ladka.
    Yes Ladka, I think it is possible you may get blue from leaf when there is no flowerstem. At least it is worth a try:)
    I'm sorry to hear about the mice, we have also had some mice in the greenhouse, but caught them before they had a chance to eat anything much (they just ate couple of seedlings, but then went for the apple in the trap).
    I also have the seedlings in the greenhouse, and plant them outside in the end of the May, then it will be warmer for sure.

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  3. I tried to grow Chinese woad also with the same results as you had, Leena. The plants were not very robust and they bolted very easily even in the first year. I gave up on growing them.

    This winter was quite mild here in Vancouver, Canada, and my woad barely even noticed! I only let 2 plants go to seed and they are currently flowering nicely. I'm sorry I can't send you all some of the record warmth we had today! It's a nice change after the last 2 cold wet springs.

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  4. Louisa, I agree, chinese woad is better in warmer climates. It is too bad, because it did give darker blue, but many times it bolted and the crop was not good:(

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  5. I have woad seedlings growing and doing very good. We've had a long mild spring and things in the garden are doing great. My Japanese Indigo did not germinate, the seed was not mature enough :( I'm going to look for seed on the dye groups on ravelry.

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