Homesteaders kaleidoscopic perennial kale grex - Northeastern Kentucky zone 6

Has anyone ever grown out this landrace from the experimental farm network? I found a channel on YouTube (Karl’s food forest garden) who has grown it out but I was wanting to see if anyone had different experiences? I just started some seeds myself and I will be documenting the process on my YouTube    hoping to see a lot of variation and achieve a new long lasting variety on my farm.

This is my third year growing it.

Most of the plants died the first winter from deer munching them. The second winter, I had a dog, so no deer. The plants did great until I got a young, completely untrained rescue dog in February who, as soon as the snow melted enough to see the plants, basically did the same munching the deer had 🙄. I'm not sure what's different this year - timing, weather, initial health of plant - but rather than dying, the plants that were munched are all growing back from the base. My winters are colder than what they're supposed to be able to handle, but we have good snow cover, so a lot of them make it. I start new ones from seed every year, too.

I don't actually see a huge amount of variation in mine. They're pretty much all collard type leaves, with a bit of variation in the amount of raggedyness on the leaf edges. There's some colour variation, but nothing major. I've only had one plant so far that you could honestly say was something other than green. The most different plant I've grown so far is one that gets huge bunches of leaves growing from each leaf node. It actually gets hard to harvest from as the season goes on. Each harvest accelerates the growth at the nodes and it grows into a really dense bush. The leaves are huge and tender. It's my favourite plant, and I'm very happy to see it survived my dog's snacking. It produced a bit of seed last year, but not as much as the other plants that went to seed. The main variation I see is in size. There are some plants that just stay really small, which I don't want.

It's a good plant. Between it and Dietrich's wild broccoli raab, also from EFN, I've got the bulk of my greens covered. The raab leaves are so tender and sweet right now, even with the plants in full flower. They'll be good until the kale gets going again. Then the kale can take over until the snow covers the plants up.

Dietrichs broccoli raab sounds interesting. I’ll have to try that soon too. That’s heart breaking to hear that you haven’t seen much variation. 😢

Travis Davis wrote:. That’s heart breaking to hear that you haven’t seen much variation. 😢

It may just be that only certain types do well in my environment, but someone else on here mentioned that theirs are all collard types as well. I like the big, smooth leaves better anyway. You see bugs easier, so you don't end up munching on squishy things in your rushed salad. They don't have so many places to hold dirt on the leaves.

I'm not worried about a lack of visual variation. I can tell it's a resilient plant, cause it does really well for me and I'm super mean to my stuff. I've tried to grow kale for years in three different places, all with different conditions. The plants always end up spindly and sad, completely coated in aphids. Not these guys. I had one plant last year, a bad aphid year, that got a lot of aphids on it. The rest of the plants had some, but nothing crazy. I abondonded the aphidy plant to its fate, but it just kept being big and healthy, no matter how many aphids were on it.

Jan White wrote:
I'm not worried about a lack of visual variation. I can tell it's a resilient plant, cause it does really well for me and I'm super mean to my stuff. I've tried to grow kale for years in three different places, all with different conditions. The plants always end up spindly and sad, completely coated in aphids. Not these guys. I had one plant last year, a bad aphid year, that got a lot of aphids on it. The rest of the plants had some, but nothing crazy. I abondonded the aphidy plant to its fate, but it just kept being big and healthy, no matter how many aphids were on it.

Hopefully I have a little more visual variation. I was hoping that they’d be able to add some aesthetic value looking at the variations promoted on the site. If not oh well though. I just want to find something that does well in my environment but I’m planning to select for visual variation and a squattier bush shape.

Sounds like the plant that was a hit for the aphids would have been culled from the yard at my place. What made you keep it?

Travis Davis wrote:

Sounds like the plant that was a hit for the aphids would have been culled from the yard at my place. What made you keep it?

Part laziness, part curiosity. I like testing my plants to see what they can take. Also, if the aphids were hanging out on that plant rather than something else that maybe couldn't handle it as well, that has value.

Jan White wrote:

Travis Davis wrote:

Sounds like the plant that was a hit for the aphids would have been culled from the yard at my place. What made you keep it?

Part laziness, part curiosity. I like testing my plants to see what they can take. Also, if the aphids were hanging out on that plant rather than something else that maybe couldn't handle it as well, that has value.

Interesting thought that I had never considered. Thanks for sharing! I’ll update on my babies in a month or two.

This was my biggest kale this year. It's one of the ones my dog munched on over the winter. The main stalk she chomped died back and the plant grew multiple stalks from the base. It turned into a bit of a monster. Unfortunately, it wasn't as immune to aphids as some of my other plants, which is why it's still so big and not as harvested like my other plants. Strangely, some of the stalks had no aphids while some had quite a few, despite all being the same plant 🤔

Jan White wrote:This was my biggest kale this year. It's one of the ones my dog munched on over the winter. The main stalk she chomped died back and the plant grew multiple stalks from the base. It turned into a bit of a monster. Unfortunately, it wasn't as immune to aphids as some of my other plants, which is why it's still so big and not as harvested like my other plants. Strangely, some of the stalks had no aphids while some had quite a few, despite all being the same plant 🤔

I have around a dozen of these going now, with the oldest being 8 months old. I had the same thing happening with aphids...clustered on just on two stalks/leaves of just one of the older plants, with none on the others.