Growing Kale

Curled kale leaves in the garden.
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Curled kale leaves in the garden. Photo: Rasbak. Source image · CC BY-SA 3.0. Converted to WebP. All image credits.

Kale in pictures · Select a photo to look closer

Young kale plants with rounded seed leaves and emerging toothed leaves in a green container.
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Young plants

Look for the new leaves developing between the rounded seed leaves. These are young plants, not a guide to how many days your own seedlings will need.

Photo: Blokenearexeter · Source and identification · Source image · CC BY-SA 4.0. Orientation normalized, resized and converted to WebP; no crop.

Long, dark, textured lacinato kale leaves spread from an upright stem in a garden.
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Lacinato form

Lacinato kale has a different outline from curly kale. Notice how the long leaves occupy space around the stem when planning room to reach and pick them.

Photo: Raffi Kojian · Source and identification · Source image · CC BY-SA 3.0. Orientation normalized, resized and converted to WebP; no crop.

Purple kale leaves with densely curled edges and pink-purple stalks growing outdoors.
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Red curly leaves

Compare the curled leaf edges with the long lacinato leaves. The purple foliage shown here is a kale form, not by itself a diagnosis of a nutrient problem.

Photo: Nick Saltmarsh · Source and identification · Source image · CC BY 2.0. Orientation normalized, resized and converted to WebP; no crop.

Kale is durable, useful, and often sweeter after cold weather.

When to plant

Choose between a spring planting and a late-summer planting for cool-weather picking. Direct sow or transplant young plants, then leave space for repeated visits: a kale plant is often harvested many times rather than cleared in one meal.

Make room for the crop

Plan for an expanding plant and access to its lower leaves. Baby-leaf picking uses space differently from keeping full plants, so match your spacing to your intended harvest. If brassicas struggled here previously, consult the bed history before reusing the space.

Water

Check soil moisture and the growing center when outer leaves look tired. Inspect leaf undersides while picking. Recording which leaves were affected helps distinguish a whole-plant problem from damage limited to an older part of the crop.

Harvest

Pick sound outer leaves while preserving the growing center. Compare the size and tenderness you prefer for salads with the leaves you use for cooking; there is no need to wait for every leaf to reach its maximum size.

Common problems

Check leaf undersides and the growing center. Record holes, insects actually seen and the amount of usable foliage left before deciding whether action is needed.

Use the disease-condition checklist to decide what to inspect and which cultural conditions to improve. It does not identify a pathogen from these observations.

Field notes

Protect young plants from flea beetles and cabbage worms. Mature plants are much tougher than seedlings.

Try it in your garden