Self sowing Kale

[ottawagardener]

This forum seemed lonely so I'm making a blog. I have been encouraging my siberian kale to reseed in my garden. It's still early days though plants have survived one winter, some have flowered. I'll have to wait until next year for babies.

Anyone have any advice for me?

[canadamike]

There is some confusion with regards to Siberian kale, taxonomy wise. Which species is yours? Napus or oleacera?

[ottawagardener]

Napus. I have red russian and a mix of ruso-siberian napus kale from wild garden seeds. I think I also have red ursa as well.

[stevil]

A few years ago, a Ragged Jack Kale overwintered here (Kale doesn't always overwinter), it flowered and set seed. Masses of baby plants appeared the following spring - these seedlings are really good in spring salads, so much so that I now produce seed for early spring sowing as a salad crop.

[extremegardener]

We've got a good population of naturalized kale (about 10 years or so) - there are two strains, one basically from russian red/ragged jack types , and the other a green frilled siberian mix, both strains from various kales developed by Peters Seeds. The green ones seem to be hardier and have some perennial tendencies. I'm encouraging the perennial tendencies, of course, which seem to go with a multi-heading tendency. I stagger their blooming to keep them separate, but other than that I just transplant the seedlings that don't land in good spots, eat the thinnings, and throw compost at 'em all.

[ottawagardener]

Extreme - The hardiest on my property is the Scottish dwarf curled kale though I am have not looked up the latin, it's extremely extremely hardy. Pickable leaves right now and we have had temps of -25C on and off for a few days. It gets snowed on, iced and still keeps going. I have also noticed that it is branching and has perennial tendencies so I wonder if it is a cultivar of frilled siberian. It's hardier than the ragged jack types but right now is competing with red ursa. The red ursa seems more effected by frosts than the frilled green one.

Good to hear that it is working in your garden. I have a spot planned to let a population develop.

[Alan]

I let my Kale go to seed every year in the back field, most of it survives and much of it is crossed, the gene pool was fairly large when I started it with close to fifteen varieties, I always intend to save seed for re-distribution purposes but often forget. Out of everything I agree that the Scottish dwarf curled kale is the hardiest of them, nothing will take those things down and I think that this cultivar is the secret to our success with overwintering and re-seeding of Kale as it's genetics should be floating all around that particular field. I will try to save some seed of these various crosses this coming season and get them distributed to all who want them.

For those who want seed to plant this coming spring be sure to check out wild garden seeds, Frank sells a nice Wild Garden mix which has a lot of genetic diversity and wonderful varieties of all types of Kale in it's heritage, you will not be dissapointed and there will be something in there for everyones taste and appearance factors as well as one or two adapted to pretty much any condition you could possibly throw at it.

[raymondo]

I like collards and kales of various sorts. I'm trying to cross, well, get bees to cross I should say, a collard (Green Glaze) and one of those frilly ornamental kales, one with pink-purple new growth and bluey-green older growth. So far only the collard wants to flower so I've been discouraging it in the hope that the kale will start but it's been two months and still no sign! Frustrating when they won't co-operate! The Green Glaze didn't really enjoy winter (we only get -10°C here, very occasionally -15°C) whereas the ornamental kale just breezed through no problem. There are a couple of purple cabbages in the same bed and I was aslo hoping to have their pollen in the mix but they're not even close to flowering!