Cabbage, Collards and Romaine Lettuce

[nelson castro]

Sounds like you've got a great start on the season. It's been a cold spring for a lot of folks, glad your babies survived that freeze.

Very glad that it did survive.

 

[JimWWhite]

It's been pretty cold here in central NC for the past week or so. Colder than normal by almost 20 degrees. Today at work some techno-geek fresh out of University tried to tell me all about global warming and climate change and how this cold weather was the result of all that. I lit his @$$ on fire and warmed my cold hands over his burning body... Climate change and global warming my foot!

 

[canesisters]

It's been pretty cold here in central NC for the past week or so. Colder than normal by almost 20 degrees. Today at work some techno-geek fresh out of University tried to tell me all about global warming and climate change and how this cold weather was the result of all that. I lit his @$$ on fire and warmed my cold hands over his burning body... Climate change and global warming my foot!

Please oh please relate that conversation as best as you can. I work at a landfill and am surrounded by folks who like to preach global warming and such.

 

[vfem]

I'm struggling right along with you, Jim! It's been so darn cold, got down to 30 again last night. I haven't covered anything through all this. I did loss a bunch of radish during that 20 degree night. My small sprouts of pak choy, carrots, cauliflower, pease, kales and all the different types of lettuce were just doing great! Like nothing even happened. I do have everything mulched with straw, but nothing major.

I'm so excited this weekend we will hit 60!!! I'm so over the moon.

I'm wondering what I can go out and plant next.... I'm going to have no self control.

 

[baymule]

vfem, it's almost flip-flop time for you!!!

 

[bj taylor]

i'm thinking my cabbage/collards/kale/swiss chard are not going to go all the way. the weather is warming fast. i'm using my greens in whatever dish i'm cooking at the moment. I don't want this good stuff to go to waste. I think I might be better off planting these things in the fall next time.

the swiss chard would do ok if I had it where it would get afternoon shade.

 

[digitS']

Do collards not make it thru the summer?

I had a collards relative, Portuguese kale, last year. We slowly turned those plants into what looked like little palm trees . The curly kale also ends up looking like that. Cut-&-come-again continues right thru the growing season.

These are all non-heading cabbages and I was pleased that I tried the Portuguese kale. It performed about the way I'd hoped the collards would when I "tried" to grow them. Then, I forgot to order 2013 seed . . . I will look carefully at the seed racks the next time I visit the garden center. They may have put it with the herbs or "Asian greens" because I didn't see it with the kale seed.

Guy Lon (also spelled Kailaan) or Chinese kale really is in that same cabbage/kale/collards family. It has and it hasn't done well for me late. One thing that you have to be willing to do with quite a few Asian greens is eat the flowering shoots. You can treat them as broccoli. This is true also with bok choy - except bok choy is in the turnip family. It is a matter of timing and, since these things can be eaten raw, you can test your preferences in the garden .

Some of my greens growing migrates into what I call "the shady corner" during the summer. It is actually a separate garden, a triangle, about 30 yards from the little veggie garden. Beginning about 10:30, the shade from evergreens begin to move across that ground. It is pretty much in shadow from there on out. It does fairly well.

Steve

 

[digitS']

I am going to jump back here and make another pitch for a maybe summer green. I say "maybe" because I can't know what it is like to grow any these, elsewhere.

One that has lasted the longest is Senposai. "What is that?" you ask. Well, it is a cross between komatsuna and cabbage. Komatsuna is a Japanese green that is much like bok choy and in the turnip family. Cabbage is cabbage . . . So, you see this is an inter-species hybrid.

The purpose of the cross may very well have been to produce a green that lasts well into summer and it has done that for me. The kales and cabbages won't bloom their 1st year here. I think all of the Asian greens will bloom but that's okay if I can catch the buds before or as they open. Broccoli!

Find that Portuguese kale seed or not -- I plan to have Senposai.

Steve