Sad kale, zone 10b, don't know what to do.

Hi all,

I'm in central Mexico, where it's dry, gets cool (50F) at night and hot and sunny (80s F) during the day.

Here is my kale, which I bought as a baby plant. It's been fertilized a bit although we don't yet have compost. It's in full sun.

I grew kale only in coastal Massachusetts so I really don't know what to do with it here.

It's got bugs (again) which I'm fending off with a diatomaceous earth / neem mixture (commercial). I'm not confident that the spray contains much of the supposedly active ingredients.

The soil seems dry every time I check it, which is about once every two days.

More compost? More water? Too much sun? I have no clue.

Thanks for any pointers.

While we've never lived in the 10b zone, when we lived in the 8a/b zone (Louisiana), our greens were having a difficult time until we shaded them for the majority of the day. We used sun sails which we had from our skoolie. They still let the rain in so we didn't have to worry about that aspect.

Kale is a cool weather plant.

It can withstand light freezing temps, and it usually likes cooler weather, but it can also survive some heat.

It looks like it’s in a pot, so maybe you could move it in a shady place, and even there it still may struggle.

I would suggest eating it and planting more.

My daytime highs are in the 100s, have been for weeks and probably will be for many more weeks.   My kale is planted under a tree and doesn't look much worse than yours right now.  When our temperatures are in the range you're describing it produces more than we can eat.  From those temperatures  in August, I imagine you are at a high altitude, maybe even mountains.  Sun at high altitude is even more intense than  mine where 6 hours can be enough for full sun plants.  I have learned to shade new trees or they don't survive to produce shade in the future.  I strongly agree with the recommendations for shade on your kale.  Even moving it to the east side of a structure could give it some relief.

I agree with the others.

Your kale looks dry (the leaves).

I would try to keep some water in the bottom so that the kale can water itself and put the plant where it gets both sun and shade.

Please let us know if you find something that works.

The pot honestly looks a little small, though it is hard to tell from the photo. When I grew kale in pots, I would use the biggest pots and planters I could find, and if I used smaller they would grow to a certain size, and then stop, and always look unhealthy and sad. Unhealthy plants are much more prone to attack by bugs.

The pots I used were probably at least 24 inches tall and 18 inches in diameter. I also used rubbermaid tubs with holes drilled in the bottom and those offered them a little more space and seemed to keep them even happier. But in either of those options, I would have kale plants live happily for years. We had these big, terrible, invasive African snails that would sometimes eat through the thick bark of their stems and kill the whole plant. That is what usually killed them eventually, not old age or anything else. Same with collards.

Your temperatures sound great for kale. I used to grow a lot of it in Hawaii, which had similar day temperatures, but warmer nights, aside from a few nights in the winter (we lived at 700-foot-elevation). Kale can handle temps in the 80s just fine, and they can also handle it quite a lot cooler. You want to make sure they have plenty of water, and the pot is large enough for them to grow to their full potential, and also to keep their roots cool.

I'd start with a bigger pot, full of rich soil/ potting mix, and see if that helps.

That looks really dry to me.  In a small, porous pot like that, you probably need to water every day, or add some kind of self-watering reservoir like Anne M suggested.

For comparison, my kale is in a 5' x 3' box with 8 hours of sun, and it droops like yours when I water every other day.