Moxie Gardener

Kale seeds ripening.

Here’s a picture of the kale plant that survived our Minnesota winter. As you can see, it’s gone to seed.

I’ve written about this kale several times before.

Here’s the post celebrating its survival over winter.

And here’s an update on its spring growth.

If you look towards the bottom of the flower stems in the picture at left, you’ll see the seed pods already formed. They look like horizontal twigs sticking out the sides of the stems.

What have I learned from this little experiment?

Kale plants will survive winter providing they are adequately covered.

You must remove the mulch in early spring, as soon as the weather begins to get above freezing. Otherwise, the leaves will wilt, become inedible, and the stem will become moldy. The entire plant will die.

Seeds will form and ripen by late spring, in plenty of time to plant for fall harvest.

The experiment will be repeated this year, using seeds that are forming right now.

But this year, I’ll use what I’ve learned.

Next spring, we’ll be eating fresh kale a month before the spring-planted greens are ready.

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Tags: kale

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 8:53 PM and is filed under Vegetables, Winter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.