Kale Ideas, Tips & Guides

Harvest Hearty Greens from the Garden: How to Grow Kale Brassica oleracea var.acephala

How to Grow Napini Kale

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Kale is a popular garden plant that is easy to grow, vigorous, and yields a generous crop of tender leaves for the table. However flip through any seed catalog and you’ll quickly see that there are many types of kale you can grow with a range of leaf colors, textures, and shapes. While they have some similarities various types of kale also have a lot of differences. Certain ones are more cold hardy which is ideal if you want to harvest kale into winter, and others have colorful, showy foliage which is a great way to jazz up a front yard vegetable garden. Keep reading to learn more about the different varieties of kale and my 14 favourites ones to grow.

Lauren Alex O’ Hagan, Cardiff University

I’ve recently submitted my second essay for my ethnobotany course, and I chose to write it on the way that the history of heritage vegetable varieties (their origin stories) influences the choice people make to grow them.

Here in Oxford, we tried sowing some Kale in the middle of August.

Kale has come to the forefront in the last decade or two as the ultimate leafy-green health food, which is both nutritious and high in fiber. Maybe it is because there are so many varieties of kale. And many of these are associated with different Asian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and European cultures.

I’VE BEEN EXPERIMENTING with a wider palette of brassicas—those good-for-you plants in the mustard family, a.k.a. cruciferous vegetables, or cole crops.

Weil is a keen cook, and it shows in the not-hippie, not-boring, not-weird cuisine that he created with Sam Fox, the founder of the partner restaurant corporation, and Michael Stebner, the executive chef of their now-six-and-counting restaurants. Their approach, whether serving patrons or cookbook readers: “globally inspired cuisine,” and also “delicious food that is also good for you.”As I have been since my 20s, Weil became a lacto-vegetarian in 1970, at age 28, but by the mid-1980s he added fish into his diet, which continued to evolve over the years. “True Food” (book or restaurant) features poultry and bison recipes as well, so non-vegetarians need not panic about coming away hungry. On that topic: I especially love the section called “The Problem of Proper Portions,” in which Weil writes about what’s “just enough.” In Italy, he says, a “serving” of pasta would fit into a teacup. Food for thought.Nothing has the life cooked out of it, and the flavors sound positively vivid. I’m drawn in by such intensely colorful dishes as Fettucine with K

As with many other blessings, I have my friends at the Organic Seed Alliance to thank for my introduction to Adaptive Seeds, which had a big year in 2013: Andrew and his partner Sarah Kleeger turned their entire farm operation over to seeds, closing their CSA; completed their official organic certification; and ramped up to double their seed assortment to 400 varieties—including 65 new to their catalog this year.View the pdf of the Adaptive catalog now Shop the catalog online Order a print catalog from adaptiveseeds [at] gmail [dot] com my q&a with andrew still of adaptive seedsQ. So a little background first, please, Andrew—a short history of Adaptive Seeds and what you and Sarah [photo above] are doing.A. This is our fifth catalog. We have been farming between Brownsville and Swee

If you want to coax the best character from your kale-growing efforts, timing is everything, says Sarah Kleeger (half of the Adaptive Seeds team, with Andrew Still).“First off, unless you live in a place where summers are cool, kale is not a summer vegetable,” she says. “Its flavor and texture improve tremendously in cold, even frosty, weather. In summer it is prone to aphids, the leaves get tough, and taste is markedly less sweet. After a few good frosts kale can

Kale is a go-to ingredient for smoothies, soups, stews, and dishes like kale pesto. This super-food is easy to grow and can even replace spinach in many recipes. If you have an overabundance of kale from your garden or the grocery store, you may want to learn how to freeze kale so you can enjoy it for months to come. Here are step-by-step instructions for freezing this delicious green.

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Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

Kale’s nutritional benefits are well-known, and the leafy green has become a favorite with restaurant chefs and home cooks alike.Perhaps you love this veggie so much

Although kale plants are usually extremely healthy and rarely contract diseases in a home garden, sometimes they can suffer from infections.Your best way to prevent this is to keep your pl

If you’re deciding when to sow kale, there are a number of factors to consider. These include the time of year, your growing zone, your desired harvest date, and the available growing conditions.One of the best things about

Kale has quickly become one of my favorite foods.In addition to having a very distinct flavor, which reminds me of a mild cabbage, i

Kale, Brassica oleracea var. acephala, is a cool weather crop that can be planted early in the spring and late in the summer.In our guide to growing kale,

One of my favorite things about kale is its easy and prolonged harvest. It’s the ultimate cut-and-come-again option for your veggie garden.We link to vendor

Kale is really a must for the backyard vegetable garden. Growing this veggie at home makes it easy to have a nutrient-dense green on hand, right outside your back door.To make sure you have a steady supp

Will kale grow in containers? You bet it will!In fact, this cabbage-family super veggie is one of the easies

You’ve made the smart decision to include kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala) in your vegetable garden. Kudos, that is an excellent choice.And now you’re wondering which plants are

Kale is a typical green. It thrives in cool temps, and usually stops producing its best flavors once the weather turns hot.Gardeners who want the large

Flowering kale, Brassica oleracea var. acephala, is a cool-weather biennial in the Brassicaceae family that includes broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and kohlrabi. It is usually grown as an annual in the cool gardens of fall, and winter.Bred to look attractive, it is edible

When you plan your cool season vegetable garden, you’ll certainly want to include kale, the versatile star of many a plant-based meal – from salads and smoothies to stir fries and stews.But to harvest the most abundant and delicious leafy gr

When insects attack your kale plants, you’ll want to fight back. Fortunately, there are natural ways to kill the many different insect pests that plague these greens.Once I’ve planted my kale and watched the leav

Curious if you can eat kale that has turned yellow? Let’s find out!A popular member of the cabbage family

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to know whether kale, Brassica oleracea, the star of many a spring or fall veggie garden, is an annual or a perennial.Armed with this knowledge, you

I love kale. I could happily eat it at any time, cooked in any style. My family, however, isn’t quite so enthralled.It has taken a bit of

Despite kale’s tendency to be healthy and vigorous, it can be vulnerable to both diseases and pests under certain conditions.We link to vendors to help you find relevant

In the last few decades, nutrient rich kale has become widely popular as a healthy staple for meals and snacks. And home gardeners have readily embraced it in the veggie patch as well.This easy-to-grow leafy green thr

Dinosaur kale, also known as Tuscan or Lacinato kale, is without a doubt my favorite type.Its long, narrow leaves make it such a breeze to cook with. And in my opinio

When the weather starts to get cold, growing ornamental kale can be a great way to add a splash of color to your fall and winter garden.We link to vendors to he