Giant Kale

Good evening folks! I wanna find out if the thousand head kale has been grown by both the French and British for centuries and is it close to its wild cousin. Is there a parent type out there today that has not been hybrid or cross pollinated by other types of kale? I'm looking for more purer and historic types out there besides the few we already know. If anybody knows of anymore historic types of kale, please let me know so we can discuss of my greater interest in the purple moosage. Thanks!

Greetings friends! Long time no see in this new year. Still on the hunt for more old varieties of kale from the 1840s-1900s from German and Dutch immigrants who came to America back then. Let me begin with some potential types which could be possibly be grown by French-Candians in Quebec and throughout New France. When did the French begin to grow kale after they settled in North America and did they bring some with them? I'd like to find out their history with kale. Also, did the Acadians grew some kale when they were almost near Labrador all the down to Louisiana back then? I have some family ancestors who lived in Mississippi near Louisiana in an area mixed with French and Creole. If anybody knows of any varieties that are grown between these two areas, please let me know in this box. Have a good day!

Hello friends! Long time no see! Missed you so far. I wanna trade for more of the Dutch blue and Pilgrim's kale for my community gardens this year. I'll spare you all some seeds of my gourds and stuff for some. Please let me know at the Purple Mooseage section if you need me. Thanks!

I did not read every post in this thread, since it's a few pages, but I saw a few comments with questions about the stems of walking stick kale, etc. I was trimming back some of my thousand head kale today since some had blown over in the recent storm, as well as my purple tree collard, which needed pruning. Since I had just seen this thread, I took a picture of the two cut stems to share. The one on the left that looks more like the consistency of wood is the purple tree collard. The one on the right is the thousand head kale. I strip off the lower leaves on the kale to avoid pest problems and contamination from touching the soil (we have a massive feral cat problem locally, so I try to grow greens that either sit above the soil level or are always cooked). So the kale tends to grow straight up and look like a little palm tree. The collards send out side branches. Both get very tall (maybe 5-6 feet).

Greetings Lydia! Which country is it taking place in terms of your kale already has been grown? Isn't it a little early for crops?

I'm in southern California (zone 10a), and we have a warm and very dry summer season and a cool, sometimes wet winter season. A lot of plants either do not really survive if planted in the summer and even regional established plants often go dormant. The best times to plant kale, collards, etc., is during the earlier part of the winter season. I'm not sure of the dates, but think I planted at least one of the collard cuttings at the end of the summer before last and gave it supplemental water and afternoon shade to survive till winter time. I think the kale I started indoors around the same time and then planted it in the soil when the temperatures started getting lower.

So basically winter is my primary gardening season.

Lydia, you grow some Dutch blue, Pilgrim's and other types of ancient European kale? I'm looking ones that are from the French, Spanish, Dutch and German to help restore my community's and family's ancestral past in the U.S Gulf South.

These are the only two I'm growing, but I hope that you are able to find the ones you are looking for. I'm not sure where the purple tree collards come from either originally or along their way to my local area (I started with an cutting that didn't have a variety listed).

Hi Lydia,
It's fascinating how woody the one stem is compared to the other! Thank you for sharing. I guess the 'walking stick kale' must be more like the collards too...My dogs like my juicy kale stalks as treats, bless them!

This is a stem of a two year old Portuguese galega (very similar to walking stick kale) that I culled from my breeding project last year. I'm selecting for the ability to survive going to seed, so I let them seed and anything that doesn't survive is automatically weeded out, then the following year I breed from whatever survived.

The woody bit around edge is very hard, as you can see from the burn marks from the table saw that I cut it with. The centre is very soft, almost hollow. It had bark on it, but I used this bit to practice whittling bark off, so it's all bare now.



This one is a four year old plant which is seeding for the third time.

Its stem is turning into a veritable trunk! I have no idea if it will survive a third seeding, but when it finally shuffles off this mortal coil I intend to cut that trunk and see how wide it ended up and what percentage is wood and what is hollow.



Watch this space. I may be some time...

Burra Maluca wrote:This is a stem of a two year old Portuguese galega (very similar to walking stick kale) ....

Burra, I'm going to "attempt" to grow this in the garden this year. For years we've stuck to the more available seed here in the U.S. of Scotch curled, Lacinato (blue), and a few other kales.  When I brought some of this in for a colleague at work who is from Brazil, he was somewhat disappointed in the bitter flavor, even though I had picked the leaves during the best, cool season period for these kales.  He recommended the one shown in the photo below which is also the one you mentioned (?).  The reason I say "attempt" to grow is because of the horrible flea beetle explosions that we can have in our region.  [The canola (rapeseed) growing regions of Canada and northern US are nearby and that industry needs to treat their seed with toxic protectant in order to get any crop at all!]  So even with this, and the cabbage worm/butterfly issues, I'm hoping to coax some of this tree kale to grow.  Colleague says it retains good flavor even through a summer in southern (cooler?) Brazil.

What's going on folks! I'm looking for a Swedish heirloom kale and an Irish one called Uncle John's, but having trouble acquiring them. Looking for more help in obtaining both for next year and beyond. If anybody have those, please let me know in the Purple Mooseage page. Thanks!