I see this in fall-planted purple Chinese Cabbage. Survived a low of 7F. And now sitting out another snowy cold snap!
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Your seed source doesn’t provide you with temperature hardiness?
It was an impulse buy from a local nursery in the fall. Didn’t save the tags.
Hoping to replicate, I got these seeds for from Renee’s Garden. Back of label says OK for mild winter areas…that sometimes occurs, but not what we had this winter.
@cdamarjian
I met her 15 years ago. She runs a quality operation. If I had a brick-and-mortar store I’d stock her seeds.
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Purple Kale is a winter green champion I can say. Green kale also does well but I think purple does slightly better, maybe the anthocyanins are why.
I also want to say that a lot of plants if planted in a winter cover crop approach(august-September seeding) will do much better than a plant (lettuce etc) that is planted mid winter or mid summer and expected to survive or produce in the winter.
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Not all purple in produce is due to anthocyanins. Not all produce containing a significant amount of anthocyanins are cold-hardy.
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I grew that red Chinese cabbage couple of years ago. It became nice dinner for the wabbits
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I took this picture yesterday. I planted a Burpee “Mesclun Mix” in August or September. It ended up sprouting a crapload of mustardy greens super fast, which mostly smothered everything else, except two or three of these I assume the leaf curling upwards is either normal or a lack of water thing. I just thought it looks neat and admired it’s not-freezing-to-death gumption, so I haven’t bothered it.
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