You can eat collards right out of the garden or store them at 34 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit to keep them fresh for a week or two.
At the end of the winter growing season, harvest the rest of the leaves and cut the whole plant to the ground. Eulalia Palomo has been a professional writer since Prior to taking up writing full time she has worked as a landscape artist and organic gardener.
Palomo holds a Bachelor of Arts in liberal studies from Boston University. She travels widely and has spent over six years living abroad. Home Guides Garden Gardening. By Eulalia Palomo. Related Articles. Thinned plants can be either transplanted to another spot or used as greens. Scatter 1 cup of garden fertilizer beside the plants for each 30 feet of row, about 1 tablespoon per plant. This is called side-dressing.
Mix the fertilizer lightly with the soil, and water. The plants may need to be sidedressed again in 4 to 6 weeks if they become pale and there is no sign that insects caused the change. When the plants are thinned to their final spacing or if they become pale green, add a little more fertilizer. Collards need plenty of nitrogen to develop their dark green leaf color.
Keep the garden free of weeds because they rob the plants of water and nutrients. Many insecticides are available at garden centers for homeowner use.
Sulfur also has fungicidal properties and helps control many diseases. Before using a pesticide, read the label and always follow cautions, warnings, and directions. Collards are subject to some diseases. If the plants have spots on the leaves, you may need to use a fungicide. Check the plants daily, and treat them with an approved fungicide if diseases appear. Neem oil, sulfur, and other fungicides are available for use.
Always follow the label directions. Collards can be harvested in two ways. For small plants that need thinning, cut the entire plant about 4 inches above the ground Fig. Sometimes they will sprout back from the side of the stem. Usually, only the lower leaves of collards are harvested. As domestication of the subspecies progressed in various parts of the world, cold-hardy kales were selected in northern climates, while gardeners in warmer climates of South America, Africa, Portugal and India selected headless cabbages that could adapt to humid heat and grow in short winter days.
I often need to protect broccoli from cabbage worms and must watch for aphids on Brussels sprouts and kale, but these pests rarely show the slightest interest in collards. In , the Environmental Working Group put collards and kale on their Dirty Dozen list after finding the leaves to be contaminated with "pesticides exceptionally toxic to the nervous system.
Many gardeners direct-seed collards as soon as nights cool down in late summer, or you can set out container-grown seedlings. Direct-seeded collards need aggressive thinning, but the thinned plants make excellent table greens. By the time growing collard plants have been thinned to at least 12 inches 30 cm apart, they are large enough to start harvesting the oldest leaves.
Widely spaced seedlings need a few weeks to fill out, but meanwhile you can use the space between them to grow upright scallions or leeks. Chilly nights with hints of frost bring out the best in collard greens, which develop leaf sugars that please human palates and work like natural anti-freeze in reducing cold injury to the plants.
I wait until the first frosts come in October to start blanching and freezing my collard greens, because those are the best collards of the year. Oh, wait, well, except maybe okra.
We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Collard greens are well loved in other parts of the world too, with several African nations favoring the vegetable, as well as Brazil, Portugal, and the Kashmir region of Pakistan and India.
Interestingly, though it is known as a Southern favorite with excellent heat tolerance, it can also be grown in northern areas thanks to its frost tolerance.
Collards are a member of the same plant genus — Brassica — that includes cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi, among others. Cauliflower and broccoli produce loose leaves and dense heads of flowers, which are typically what we eat.
This is an important consideration for cultivation in the South, where high humidity offers fungal diseases a welcoming environment. As a group, brassicas are appreciated for their nutritive value.
Collards are high in fiber, manganese, folic acid, calcium , and vitamins A, C, and K, though some of their nutritional value can be lost through the cooking process. In addition to having good heat tolerance a definite plus in the South , these plants are also known for their preference for a cool growing season.
Collards can reach inches in height and inches in width. In other zones they may be grown as annuals. Likely descendants of ancient wild cabbages in Asia, collards as we know them today originated in the eastern Mediterranean.
Ancient Greeks, for example, cultivated several types of collard. Romans, too, cultivated and ate many leafy greens, including collards. As the Roman Empire spread west throughout Europe, east to what we now call the Middle East, and south to North Africa, the invaders took collards with them.
It is unknown whether the Romans or the Celts — a collection of tribes with origins in Central Europe that predated Roman occupation of this region — brought collards to the British Isles. From these widespread and various parts of the world, they eventually traveled to the American South. The plant was a staple of African slaves, and thus this leafy green began its history of importance in this region. Backing up a bit, greens including collards were cultivated and consumed for their nutritive value throughout much of the African continent.
Collards were a familiar and much-appreciated food source. West Africans who were kidnapped and brought to American shores as enslaved people were often forced to forage for food, according to historians, and were likely relieved to find collards growing in winter , when other food was scarce. Drawing on cultural wisdom passed down from their ancestors, the enslaved people knew that leafy greens were nutritive, a quality that must have been appealing to these people, who history teaches us were often malnourished.
The enslaved people put into practice the greens-cooking methods used by their forebears — they boiled them down until tender, adding available seasonings.
Passed down through the generations, cooking and eating collard greens has remained an important part of Southern culture to this day. You can start collard greens from seed indoors or outdoors , or you can purchase seedlings from a garden center and transplant them into your garden. Start seeds indoors four to six weeks before you plan to transplant outdoors. Alternatively, you can direct sow outdoors using the same timing information detailed above.
In general, spring crops are started indoors, whereas as fall crops are directly sown. For direct sowing, seed heavily in rows 30 inches apart, and thin seedlings to 12 to 18 inches apart. You can discard, transplant, or eat the leaves of the seedlings you pull. Collards prefer full sun, but will tolerate a few hours of light shade, and they have a few soil requirements:. As discussed above, collards are perhaps surprisingly one of the most cold-tolerant vegetables, able to withstand temperatures ranging down to the upper teens.
Collards need about 80 days to mature from seed to harvest, but this can vary by variety, so check the back of your seed packet or plant pick. Some gardeners can get both spring and fall crops in. Collard roots can grow two feet deep, so be sure your planting bed has plenty of depth. Keep this in mind if you opt to plant in containers or raised beds. Before planting, loosen the soil and amend with plenty of organic material, then scatter a fertilizer over the planting area.
Use about one cup of fertilizer for each 10 feet of row. Use a rake to mix the fertilizer into the top few inches of soil.
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