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We grow a few kinds of kale most years. Iâll eat it, but it isnât my favorite. I much prefer collards and beet greens. One year we grew Lacinato kale. That stuff got almost 4â tall.
If You Think Kale Is âSo 2010,â Youâre Not Growing the Right Ones
When it comes to kale, the organic farmers at Adaptive Seeds have a few things to teach you â and some versions of the familiar green that may not be so familiar.
This year, the Adaptive Seeds catalog is offering 14 types of kale. One of them, Kale Coalition, above, is a diverse gene-pool mix of 17 kales and their crosses.
This year, the Adaptive Seeds catalog is offering 14 types of kale. One of them, Kale Coalition, above, is a diverse gene-pool mix of 17 kales and their crosses.CreditâŚAndrew Still
By Margaret Roach
March 30, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
Yes, Sarah Kleeger knows: Kale is not exactly making headlines these days. Not anymore.
âKale is so 2010, or whenever,â she was saying the other day by phone, from Sweet Home, Ore., as she walked through her kitchen garden, describing and sampling this green and that, a sort of virtual show-and-tell and tasting.
Lest she be misunderstood, though, she quickly added: âBut Iâm definitely not bored with kale, and still celebrate it.â
No matter how familiar or even generic kale has become, Ms. Kleeger would not be without it. It is an essential at her home, and among the nearly 600 vegetables, grains, herbs and flowers in the Adaptive Seeds catalog that she founded in 2009 with her partner, Andrew Still.
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Self-professed âseed nerdsâ Sarah Kleeger and Andrew Still founded Adaptive Seeds, a certified organic farm and seed operation in Sweet Home, Ore., in 2009. Their catalog currently offers nearly 600 vegetables, grains, herbs and flowers.CreditâŚShawn Linehan
A depth of kale genetics remains a signature feature of their certified organic farm and seed operation. This yearâs availability list includes 14 types â one of which, Kale Coalition, is a diverse gene-pool mix of 17 kales and their crosses.
It has been 15 years since the pair, who were then working on other peopleâs organic vegetable farms and had the winter off, took a four-month, seed-focused trip to nine Northern European countries. That regionâs climate translates well to the one at home, and to other North American areas, so they knew that any seed they acquired would be at least partly adapted to big portions of the country.
âWeâre seed nerds, so we took our life savings to Europe to look for seed,â Ms. Kleeger told me when we first met, almost 10 years ago. They also brought along seeds to share.
If they were not already kale nerds, too, when they embarked on what they called their Seed Ambassadors Project, they were when they got back. The trove they returned with â some 800 varieties of vegetables that werenât commercially available in the United States at the time â included close to 20 kales that werenât the same-old, same-old supermarket model of the day.
The ambassadors of seed became connoisseurs of kale, and are ever at the ready with advice on how to achieve a year-round harvest and which variety is best suited to which culinary purpose. For not all kales are created equal.
It is just one of various passions for the couple, who likewise have a thing for Northern-adapted tomatoes (they have more than 100 kinds), peppers and beans (snap and dry, fava and runners). Oh, and corn â including flint types for grinding into meal.
âSince we learned how to make pozole out of our homegrown corn, weâve become even more enamored with corn as one of our favorite crops,â Ms. Kleeger said.
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The Adaptive Seeds farmers have a growing collection of edible ornamentals, or âedimentals,â including quinoa and amaranth. Showy Miriah Leaf amaranth is grown for its foliage, eaten in salad or cooked.CreditâŚAndrew Still
An Ever-Widening Palette of Greens
Lately, Mr. Still and Ms. Kleeger also find themselves with a growing collection of edible ornamentals â or what they call âedimentalsâ â including amaranth and quinoa, which are as beautiful as they are tasty. And not just for their heads of grain, but also for their leaves.
The catalog features other unusual greens, too, some of which were offering tasty samples on a recent March day.
âFrom a gardenerâs perspective, I have really come to appreciate some of the perennial ones, in particular,â said Ms. Kleeger, naming some names.
No garden, for example, should be without a patch of sorrel (Rumex acetosa). Its lemony foliage is a welcome accent green in spring salads, and even winter ones. (It bolts, then mostly rests in summer heat before producing again in fall.) And it is the mainstay of unforgettable sorrel soup.
Adaptiveâs sorrel, like so many of their seeds, has a story: On the Seed Ambassadors trip, Mr. Still and Ms. Kleeger visited a farmersâ market in Transylvania, where an older Hungarian man was selling seed in packets he had fashioned out of newspaper. Their friend, who was acting as a translator, didnât speak Hungarian, so the sorrelâs provenance before that point is sketchy. Mr. Still and Ms. Kleeger simply called it Transylvanian Sorrel. Back home, it has been growing steadily, spreading in a well-behaved way.
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The original seed for Transylvanian Sorrel, a perennial with lemony leaves, was bought at a farmersâ market in Transylvania from an older Hungarian man selling it in packets he had made out of newspaper.CreditâŚAndrew Still
And hereâs something even less familiar: What about a perennial green with a cucumber flavor that doubles as a handsome ground cover? Salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor) â which is great in salads, as its name suggests â checks both boxes.
Sculpit or bladder campion (Silene vulgaris) is a short-lived perennial that adds an herbal flavor hinting at arugula or chicory to salad, risotto or an omelet.
Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) âis halfway between lovage and celery in appearance,â Ms. Kleeger said, âand halfway between an herb and a green in use.â A biennial or short-lived perennial, it tastes like mild parsley.
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An unusual annual for salads, the walnut-flavored Doucette dâAlger (Fedia cornucopiae) grows like mache, but faster and larger. It also has purple flowers that attract pollinators.CreditâŚAndrew Still
For celery flavor without the thick stems, ideal for mirepoix or flavoring soups, grow Hollow Pipe of Malines (Apium graveolens), a Belgian heirloom cutting celery.
And while one crop or another is sometimes referred to as âthe next kaleâ â the annual orach or mountain spinach (Atriplex hortensis), for instance â the Adaptive farmers appreciate each one for its individuality and performance, not for the hype. Whatâs not to love about the pure magenta deliciousness of their Red Flash orach, with its heart-shaped leaves?
Another annual thatâs good for salads, the walnut-flavored Doucette dâAlger (Fedia cornucopiae), grows like mache, but faster and larger. And thereâs a bonus, Ms. Kleeger pointed out: It covers itself in purple flowers that pollinators like.
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A kale must be distinguished to make it into the Adaptive Seeds catalog. Although technically one of the familiar lacinato types (sometimes called Tuscan or dinosaur kale), Dazzling Blue Lacinato is extra colorful, with blue-green leaves and vivid purple stems and midribs.CreditâŚAndrew Still
Kale Through All the Seasons
Kale is a biennial whose sweetness is brought out by cold weather, and it will overwinter in many places. Seed shoppers may see one of two Brassica species listed in Latin beneath a varietyâs description.
Those classified as Brassica oleracea, or European kale, are probably the most familiar, but there are distinctive varieties among them. The English heirloom Madeley, with extra-large leaves and robust yields, is one. The popular lacinato types, sometimes called Tuscan or dinosaur kale, are in this species, and Adaptiveâs version is no typical dark-green suspect: Dazzling Blue Lacinato is extra colorful, with blue-green leaves and vivid purple stems and midribs.
But it is the extra-tender, milder-tasting leaves of the Brassica napus kales â the Russo-Siberian ones, mostly from Northern Europe and Northern Asia â that Mr. Still calls âthe best of the best.â Red Russian and Siberian are the two best known to gardeners.
Napus types are especially good for salads. Highly recommended: Simone Broadleaf, developed in collaboration with the Culinary Breeding Network and Timothy Wastell, an Oregon-based chef. The B. napus kales are also the hardiest, surviving to at least 10 degrees, and the Western Front variety is especially so.
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Some of the most unusual varieties of kale at Adaptive Seeds are positively frilly. The ultimate in froth is Bear Necessities, which has been called the seaweed of kale.CreditâŚAndrew Still
And some are positively frilly: North Star Polaris, for instance, or Russian Frills. And for the ultimate in froth, try Bear Necessities, which has been called the seaweed of kale.
âIt certainly gives a salad a lot of loft,â Ms. Kleeger said.
Kale, she is quick to point out, is not a summer vegetable: âYou can eat it year-round if you manage your rotations, though some times of year itâs way better.â
In their kitchen garden, she and Mr. Still sow two rotations: one in early spring, to take them through midsummer, and another in mid-July. âOur fall crop is here to eat from through to spring,â Ms. Kleeger said, âin the great refrigerator of winter.â
Kale can be direct-sown, but to get ahead of weed competition, Ms. Kleeger and Mr. Still start seeds in the greenhouse in early March, where they grow for about five weeks, before transplanting them into the garden in early April. Thatâs a month or so ahead of their mid-May average final frost date, but the soil has warmed sufficiently and the days are long enough to urge rapid growth.
The July sowing is transplanted out in August; this is the crop that will be harvested for seed the following year, in June or July.
They space the kale seedlings 12 inches apart in all directions, and at spring planting time they enrich the bed with a 4-4-4 organic fertilizer blend or chicken-manure compost.
Tighter spacing is fine if you plan to thin the plants as they grow, harvesting some along the way. Beginning in June, Ms. Kleeger may harvest a couple of leaves from each of her half-dozen spring-sown kitchen garden plants every week.
âItâs good to keep harvesting gradually like that, when theyâre tender,â she said, âand not to leave them sitting on the plant very long after they reach full size.â
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Kale and other brassicas left to overwinter start budding up around March of their second year, going into flowering mode. The asparagus-like shoots are called the raab.CreditâŚAndrew Still
Brassicas: The Gifts That Keep on Giving
In her first farming season, before she knew kale so well, Ms. Kleeger recalls seeing the biennial plants start budding up about this time of year, going into flowering mode beginning in March.
âOh, itâs bolting â itâs done,â she remembers thinking. âBut from my farming mentors, I learned otherwise.â
What is called the raab â asparagus-like shoots bearing flower buds â was beginning to form. Harvest when the buds are tight and look like miniature broccoli flowers, before they stretch, and it can be eaten raw or cooked the way you would broccoli.
âPretty soon, I saw people start selling it at farmersâ markets,â she recalled.
Any brassica will do this if you leave it long enough, she learned. Now she looks forward to cabbage raab, too, and the âamazing delicacyâ of collardâs version.
As she put it, âItâs a celebration of things as they go to flower.â
Not a bad way to start a new season in the garden, and on the farm.
Margaret Roach is the creator of the website and podcast A Way to Garden, and a book of the same name.
Earlier this year when I was ordering seeds, I couldnât decide on a kale variety and ended up getting their Kale Coalition packet â thatâs the image used for the article.
I use kale and collards pretty interchangeably in stew. This year I was going to explore chard and beet greens more.
Love kale! Iâve got a few from Adaptive Seeds in beds now. Dazzling Blue is quite pretty and the Madeley is a monsterâhuge tender leaves.
Has anyone tried the perennial kale grex from Experimental Farn Network?
I bought that kale grex, as well as the ultracross collards and rutabanging rutabaga grex, all to be planted here late summer.
Also bought a pound of Chrisâ white marrowfat bean seed.
Please let us know how that perennial kale works out.
Iâve got kale thatâs 3 years old. itâs red Russian and hunger gap. Iâm zone 6 but itâll grow under snow. Iâll try to get photos of it itâs just starting to make new big leaves.
they give it a foot square per plant? mine is just down between rows of other stuff. a lot of it dies off after a harvest and looks crowded but it seems to help the other plants stay cool at the roots during summer. I think my plants probably get 6" square to grow in
hereâs a few of my winter food friends