<![CDATA[MarBeth Home Arts - Landscaping & Gardening]]>

by
Elizabeth Ann Roy

Photo of kale courtesy of Javier Robles from Pixabay

Photo of kale courtesy of Image by Javier Robles from Pixabay

table of contents

Four Tips to Keep Your Kale Sweet and Out of the Heat

A Short How-to Primer on Growing Kale in Containers

How to Thin Your Kale Seedlings
How to Transplant Your Kale Seedlings
How to Care for Your Kale when Growing It Indoors

Harvesting and Storing Your Kale

Some like it hot, but kale likes it cool. It‘s a cold-weather crop, after all. When temperatures shoot up to 80°F (27°C) or higher, kale gets tough and bitter about it, like some people you might know. You can massage kale leaves. Believe it or not, that actually does help.

But what if you want kale in your salads during the hot summer months? What if you want to use kale leaves in your cooking? Do you really want to massage every leaf of kale that you're going to put into every dish you cook, every family-size salad you make, or even every individual salad you make just for you?

Four Tips to Keep Your Kale Sweet and Out of the Heat

You actually do have four ways that you can continue to have your sweet kale and eat it, too, in spite of the heat.

Tip #1 -- Find Your Kale Some Shade

If you've been planting successive crops of kale every two weeks to keep yourself and your family supplied, you can continue your routine. You'll just need to change the spot where you've been planting your kale.

If you want to keep growing your kale outdoors, think about the microclimates in your yard. Where does shade appear earliest during the day? Where does it linger longest? When you're looking for cool places to sit down and relax, where in your yard do you go? Invite your kale to join you there.

Not that kale is a diva or a demanding plant, but it will still want partial sun and loamy or sandy soil that retains moisture at a depth of one inch below the surface. A plant’s got to have what a plant’s got to have to survive.

You can return your kale to its original space once the heat of summer has passed. If you want to give your seeds a head start, start them indoors. Sow them in flats or peat pots six to 10 weeks before the first frost date in your area.

If you're sowing your seeds outdoors, plant them in their original spot when soil temperatures return to around 70°F (21°C). Then, you can continue to plant your kale outside until about two weeks before that first frost date.

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Tip #2 -- Find Your Kale Some Air Conditioning

If you have little to no shade in your yard or you live in an area where it’s too hot for kale, even in the shade, you can start planting your kale in containers and move it indoors.

For growing plants in individual containers, you’ll need pots measuring 6 inches (15.24 cm) in width. If you want to grow multiple plants in the same container, you’ll need a planter that allows 8 to 12 inches (20.32-30.48 cm) between the plants. Containers for any plant should provide for good drainage.

If you plan to use kale in your cooking or serve it in salads often, you’ll need three to four plants per person. Also, if you entertain frequently, you may want to include a few more plants to provide enough kale for your guests.

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Tip #3 – Find Your Kale a Tent, a Grow Tent

Another cool indoor location for your kale is a grow tent. Grow tents give you complete control of your kale’s environment. You can control the temperature, the humidity levels, watering, and the LED lighting.

Tents for small plants can fit on the floor of a standard closet. Kale plants are taller, though, and require larger tents. You’ll also need a tent with enough floor space to accommodate the number of plants you need for your family. You can find tents large enough to let you tend your plants as you walk around upright.

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Tip #4 -- Find Your Kale Some Wheels

You can give your kale the best of both worlds by planting it in containers and placing the containers on wheeled platforms. That way, you can wheel your kale into the shade or indoors when temperatures soar and wheel it back out again when temperatures cool.

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A Short How-to Primer on Growing Kale in Containers

For those who’ve never grown kale or who haven’t grown it in containers, here’s a quick guide.

What Type of Container Should You Choose for Growing Kale?

You can choose any container that has never been used to hold any toxic or hazardous chemicals. You just need a container that can hold potting soil and provide sufficient space and drainage. So, you can be very creative about choosing your containers.

As I’ve already mentioned, individual plants need a container that’s 6 inches wide. Planters should allow for 8 to 12 inches of space between plants. Also, as I’ve already mentioned, you’ll need enough containers to grow three to four plants per person in your family with extra for guests if you entertain a lot.

Just to start you thinking, consider and expand upon this list of container possibilities:

Ceramic, clay, or plastic planters
Large cans such as coffee cans – just punch drainage holes in the bottom
Two-liter bottles or one-pint or one-gallon jugs -- cut off the tops and punch drainage holes in the bottom
Colorful, reusable polypropylene shopping bags with drainage holes punched in the bottom
Plastic or galvanized metal tubs or buckets with drainage holes punched in the bottom and sides

Look around and see what you might already have that you could repurpose into a container for your kale.

What Kind of Potting Soil Should You Use?

You’ll definitely need to use potting soil and not topsoil or soil from your garden.

Potting soil is lighter than garden soil or topsoil. That improves drainage and prevents the soil from clumping together around roots. Potting soil also is sterilized, so it won’t contain weed seeds, the eggs of insect pests, or plant diseases as topsoil or soil from your garden could.

To give your kale the nutrients it needs, you’ll want to choose potting soil that’s been blended for growing herbs or herbs and vegetables with a pH level between 5.5 and 6.8

Kale likes loamy, sandy soil. If you choose, you can mix your own potting soil. For kale, your mixture should be:

40 percent silt
40 percent sand
20 percent clay

Your homemade mix should have the same pH level mentioned above, 5.5 to 6.8.

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What’s the Best Indoor Location for Kale?

Kale needs six hours or more of sunlight per day. While you’re growing your kale indoors, keep it in the sunniest location you can find or use a grow light. If you’re using a grow light or a grow tent, you can place your kale anywhere that’s convenient for you.

To keep your kale sweet and tender when the weather turns hot, start planting it in a cool, partially shaded area or growing it indoors.

If you’re going to move your kale to a cool, partly shaded spot in your yard, you can sow the seeds in the ground about eight to ten weeks before temperatures are likely to soar in your area. The plants in the shaded area should mature about the time the heat would be turning the ones planted in full sun bitter.

If you want to start your kale from seedlings that you’ll transplant outdoors, sow the seeds in a flat or peat pot about five to seven weeks before the temperatures typically start shooting above 80°F (27°C) in your area.

If you’re planning on moving your kale indoors during the heat of summer, you’ll want to sow your seeds early enough that you have a continuous supply of ready-to-harvest leaves. Since your goal, in this case, is mature plants and not seedlings for transplanting, start the seeds eight to 10 weeks before the heat of summer begins.

Whether you’re planting your seeds in the ground or in a container, you should space them 3 inches apart and then cover them lightly with just ½ inch (1.27 cm) of soil or potting soil.

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How to Thin Your Seedlings

Wait to thin your seedlings until the plants are around 4 to 5 inches tall and have at least two to three sets of true leaves.

The first pair of leaves you’ll see sprouting above the soil are not true leaves but a part of the seed called the cotyledon. This part of the seed uses sunlight or simulated sunlight from LED bulbs just the way true leaves do. The cotyledon turns nutrients from the soil or potting soil into food for root development and the growth of the true leaves.

When your seedlings are ready for thinning, choose the strongest ones and leave 8 to 12 inches (20.32-30.48 cm) between plants growing outdoors or in containers with multiple plants.

If you want to save some of the seedlings, transplant them to a container or elsewhere in your yard. You also can use the leaves as a seasoning for your cooking.

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How to Transplant Your Seedlings

As mentioned above, individual plants should be placed in containers that are at least 6 inches wide.

If you're moving your seedlings outdoors or into a planter with multiple plants, space them 8 to 12 inches apart.

Wherever you’re transplanting your seedlings, you should place them so that the stem forms a 90° angle to the soil. Avoid covering the lowest set of leaves, but place the seedling deep enough that the soil will help to support the stem.

The soil should be firm around the roots, but don’t tamp it down so tightly that you crush them.

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How to Care for Kale When You’re Growing It Indoors

When you're growing kale in indoor pots, you need to take care not to overwater or over-fertilize it.

Watering Kale

Kale needs about 1-1 ½ inches (2.54-3.81 cm) of water every week, but it likes sandy soil, not soggy soil. So, let the top layer of soil dry out between watering, but make sure that the soil below a depth of 1 inch remains evenly moist.

A soaker hose is best for watering kale that you’re growing outdoors because it keeps the leaves from getting wet. Fungal growths are attracted to wet kale leaves.

Applying Fertilizer to Your Kale

When you’re growing kale indoors, you’ll need to fertilize it every seven to 10 days. Use a liquid or water-soluble fertilizer on plants you’re growing in containers.

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Protecting Your Kale from Pests and Diseases

Whether you're growing your kale indoors or outdoors, you need to protect it from pests. However, kale faces different pests indoors than it does outside.

Protecting Your Kale from Pests

Kale is a hardy vegetable. You're more likely to have problems with insects in the spring than in the summer. Once kale's established, it should have few problems with diseases or insect pests even if you’re growing your kale outdoors.

Row covers provide excellent pest protection for kale that’s growing outdoors.

However, if you see cutworms or green, worm-like caterpillars on or around your plants, you can remove them by hand. Look for cutworms in the evening or on cloudy days when they will be active, and wear gloves when removing them. Drop caterpillars and cutworms in a bucket filled with a mixture of water and plain dishwashing soap that contains no additives like grease cutters, anti-bacterial ingredients, or fragrances.

Whether you’re growing your kale in containers or in the ground, sprinkling diatomaceous earth around the base of your plants protects them from snails and slugs. Slug or snail bait also works, of course.

For container-grown plants, you can replace row covers with craft or bridal tulle. Craft tulle is less expensive than bridal tulle, but it’s also stiffer and has wider openings than bridal tulle. Bridal tulle also comes in wider widths that would be better for covering larger containers. Both are sold online and in brick-and-mortar fabric stores.

Protecting Your Kale from Diseases

If you’re planting your kale in a cool, partially shady spot outside, avoid using the same partially shady spot that you used the year before. Rotating the places where you plant your kale reduces the chances of any diseases finding safe harbor in the ground.

As long as the soil or the container drains well and you avoid getting the leaves wet when you water your kale, you shouldn’t have a problem with diseases.

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Harvesting and Storing Your Kale

Your kale is ready to harvest when the leaves are about the same size as your hand, although you can harvest them earlier if you want baby kale. Harvest the leaves that are closest to the surface of the soil first and always leave at least four leaves at the top of the plant.

When harvesting the leaves from the plant, avoid stripping the stalk of the kale. Snap the leaves down gently but firmly so that the stem separates cleanly from the stalk.

If you find that you’ve picked more leaves than you need, you can place them in a plastic bag and store them in your refrigerator’s crisper drawer for a few days.

If you have any questions about growing kale, post them below. We’ll answer either in this thread or with another post.

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