How to grow kale

Kale is a cool-season leafy green that home gardeners grow for a harvest that runs across most of the year, since the plant tolerates cold that would finish more tender greens. The ruffled or lobed leaves grow from a central stalk that can reach two to four feet tall, and a bed planted in spring can still be cut from well into fall, since frost sweetens rather than damages mature leaves. Gardeners treat it as a cut-and-come-again crop, working from the base of the stem up to gather older leaves while smaller ones keep expanding at the top.

The hardest part of growing kale well is keeping it out of hot weather. University of Minnesota Extension warns that heat or moisture stress causes the plant to produce compounds that turn the leaves pungent or bitter, and that hot weather slows growth while toughening the leaves that do form. A second-year gardener who leaves a spring planting in the ground through the first hot stretch of summer, rather than timing it to finish before heat arrives, ends up with leaves that are tough and strongly flavored even though the plant still looks healthy.