Welcome fellow kale growers. Post any and all photos, thoughts, notes, observations, etc. concerning the GTS Leafy Brassica oleracea blend and/or other kales you may be growing. I am re-growing my ‘Ridiculously Cold Hardy’ seed crop this year (harvested in spring of 2024) in hopes of seeing even more seed production in 2026 - I will be challenging the genetics in various ways while also giving some of the plants slight protections to better ensure some seeds (prayer hands) in 2026. Though my 2023 GTS kales were essentially all obliterated in January of 2024 I have many plants that made it in my drafty leaky so called greenhouse this season through a month of 10 F -to- -15 F. That basic protection from wind and raw unbridled air makes a difference at those temps. I believe my entire outdoor crop (entirely unprotected) is nearly all dead. I continue to hope for some anomalies there. I will continue to push the boundaries of cold tolerance out my way.
I managed to plant my first indoor kale beds this past week. I will shift to outdoor grows in the next two weeks. In doing so, I will companion plant these with my tree collard clone cuttings I took last fall that made it through the same recent winter in one gallon pots in the same greenhouse. These will likely mostly bolt out of the gates (in my experience) but they do well with a flower pruning and eating. AND, if I get insta seeds I won’t complain. After all, where I live, I eat anything edible that grows.
(First 2025 Leafy Kale GTS plantings under straw in large bed - thin bed along wall is warm season salad mix and mesclun mix from Adaptive Seeds)
(Pictured in pots above - made it in gh cover through -15 F and many negative nights in January)
I even harvested from the main garden through the last 10 days of December - a first for our time in our mountain valley here (the past five plus years). Included here real live leafy B. oleracea grown in the real live climate under the real sun December 21st-through-December 31st harvests. (Not available in stores - we ate these)
Typically by mid November we’ve started having our first snows. And typically by mid-December we have had some absurdly cold weather. This winter was different. With a mild La Niña, we experienced a kind of push of the coldest weather by 2 weeks to a month. OR, was that simply by the grace of the weather gods the Arctic blobs were repeatedly pushed east of the Continental Divide?
None the less, what was once bumping for over 7 months…
Keep in mind, until the January cold arrived these plants had all routinely experienced nights of 10-15 F weather. They were also bumping when day-time temps never rose above 30 F. Once the leafy Brassicas I’ve worked with (roughly 40-50 known cultivars) face an onslaught of 0-10F day time weather with 0 - to - (insert your negative temps here), I find they almost always need some semblance of protection. Although, I should add, the Russo-Siberian complex alone shows great promise in this regard and I should likely re-introduce a dedicated section to this cause. I digress. This could be a low growing sprawling bed covered by snow and ice. This could be some semblance of wind protection by a cold frame and a chicken house to its rear like this collard/kale offshoot hybrid that has lived through -40F and become a sort of pseudo small-leaved perennial for our salads (produces very dainty fun small leaves perfect for salad mixes and sauteeing - no prep needed!)
That may not look like much currently but those purple stems at this time of year mean everything - more seeds and more salad greens. This candidate will yet again make it into my ‘Ridiculously cold hardy leafy B. oleracea’ blend in 2025. I will be trialing my strongest survivors in three beds this year - one bare; one protected by only GH plastic; one protected by row cover and GH plastic. All three beds will be in the naked outdoors so no surrounding building structure to add thermal mass or elemental protections.
