Kale

by Barry Carter

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On April 11, 2008 I planted a couple different kale varieties in my garden. You can see where I planted them below:

Russian Red Kale toward the front and True Siberian Kale near the fence.

I have previously had fairly good luck with other varieties of kale and was expecting good things with these varieties when a late snow storm on June 10, 2008 weighed my black walnut tree to the ground:

The Red Russian Kale would be toward the bottom right of this picture
and the True Siberian Kale would be toward the top.
Both are covered with snow.

They seem to have recovered quite well from the late snow and by the Forth of July 2008 I was eating from both of them:

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The Red Russian Kale is visible in the lower left and lower right of this picture
and the True Siberian Kale would be toward the center.

The seed package for the True Siberian Kale plants says:

True Siberian Kale
Brassica napus
24-30 in. Hardy Biennial

By August 26, 2008 the True Siberian Kale was a bit taller than they say it typically gets on the seed package:

True Siberian Kale on August 26, 2008

I ate kale throughout the winter. Here my Thanksgiving 2008 salad plate:

Kale generally survives throughout winter pretty well and grows new seeds on the second year. My Russian Red Kale plants still looked pretty good on

February 3, 2009 :

but they did not survive the winter. You can see three or four of them toward the middle front in the picture below:

Toward the back of the picture above are a couple of True Siberian Kale plants near the fence.

These plants survived the winter and I measured the tallest one on May 13, 2009:

This plant  was already about as tall as True Siberian Kale plants are expected to get.

Here is another picture of the two Siberian Kale plants that survived the winter:

May 17, 2009

Notice that the smaller Siberian Kale plant to the right already flowered as you can see more clearly below:

I will either plant the new seeds from these plants down the fence somewhere or forget about them and notice the new kale plants they have produced on their own.

By May 25, I noticed that the largest True Siberian Kale plant in my garden was a lot taller so I measured it. It was four feet eight inches tall as you can see below:

Despite the maturity of this kale it was still sweet and tasty.

Below you can see a picture of the kale on May 31, 2009:

You can see below that the kale in this picture is over 5 feet 5 inches tall and the bees are really loving it:

Notice the round object in the lower left of the picture above. I have placed this "orb" in the center of the picture below so you can get a better view of it:

I'm not sure what this is. I often see similar shapes in pictures taken in dimly lit rooms or around dark outside but this is the first time I have seen an object like this in full daylight.

It is very rewarding to have so many plants in my garden that are showing this kind of incredible growth and health. This True Siberian Kale plant grew almost three feet in 14 days. The average growth was over 2.5 inches per day.

I think that one reason it may not have grown as large last year is because the other plants around it shaded it out. This year it had a big head start by surviving a cold winter.