How to Grow Collard Greens

Collard greens, or collards, are a member of the cabbage family. Few vegetables surpass collards in nutritional power. One cup of cooked collard greens contains 83 percent of your daily requirement for vitamin A, only 14.9 calories and no fat. A long time traditional staple of southern cuisine, collards can be used in cooking just as you'd use cabbage. Collard greens however, have a much higher fiber content and so they require quite a bit more cooking time. Many grocery markets will regularly stock collard greens in the produce section, but in some areas of the country, collard greens are not widely available. However, if your climate is cool enough—collards are a cool season crop—and you've got some garden space to spare, you can grow your own.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Collard green seeds
• Garden space for growing the collard greens
• 10-20-10 Garden fertilizer
• Soil – rich, light sandy loam, pH .5.5 to 6.8
• Small garden shovel
• Small garden rake

1. Select a collard green variety. Champion, Georgia, Vates and Flash are all commonly recommended collard varieties, each having their own growth habits and leaf size, color and texture.

2. Prepare the seed bed. Your collard greens will grow best in a light, rich, sandy loam soil with a pH of 5.5 to 6.8. Cultivate the soil thoroughly and deeply (at least 10 inches) since collard roots will grow as much as 2 feet deep. Form the soil into raised rows about 8 inches high and 3 feet apart.

3. Sprinkle the tops of the planting rows with a 10-20-10 garden fertilizer. Use your garden rake to mix the fertilizer into the top 4 inches of the soil.

4. Sow the collard green seeds in early spring for a summer harvest, or in mid summer for a late autumn harvest. Spread the seeds evenly along the top of each row of the seed bed. Ultimately your collard plants will be 18 inches apart, but collard seeds are small and hard to dispense evenly, so spread the collard seeds a little more densely; you will thin them later. Cover the seeds with ½ inch of soil.

5. Water the planted collard seeds by sprinkling, so as not to disturb the covered seeds. Keep the seed bed slightly moist until germination. The seeds will germinate in 6 to 12 days.

6. Continue to water the collards evenly, about 1.5 inches of water every seven to ten days. Drip irrigation works well for home gardens.

7. Thin the seedlings to 6 inches apart when they are about 2 inches tall.

8. Pull weeds from the collard green bed regularly throughout the growing season.

9. Fertilize the collard greens again with a 10-20-10 garden fertilizer if you notice that the plants begin to look pale.

10. Thin the plants again, to 18 inches apart, when leaves of adjacent plants touch. The young harvested plants are good for eating or may be transplanted to another area of the garden.

11. Harvest the collard greens continuously by cutting the outer leaves when they are about 12 inches tall, leaving the inner three layers of leaves to continue growing. Or harvest the entire plant at the end of the growing season; in this case the tough outer leaves will not be good for eating, so discard them. In frost free climates or climates that have only light frost, collards may produce throughout the entire winter.

Tips & Warnings

• To sow the small collard seeds, fold an index card in half lengthwise, and pour the seeds into the fold. This makes dispensing the seeds evenly easier.
• Collard greens can also be transplanted from seedlings that have already been started indoors. This results in a quicker harvest and allows you to plant a second crop before the end of the growing season.
• Collard greens like cool weather and will even tolerate a light frost.
• Inspect your collards regularly for pests. Collards are especially susceptible to aphids and cabbage worms. Look on all sides of the leaves for cabbage worms. Look on the undersides of the leaves for aphids. Catching pests early is key to effective control.

[1antonia]

on 11/17/2009 Hello Yalondad, I have found that any cabbage related plants will grow to seed after flowering,..so unless u wish to collect seeds, best to pull them out.Greetings from "down under"

[yalondad]

on 10/18/2009 Just wondering if collards are perennial plants? I'm not sure if I need to pull them in the late fall/winter or if they will come back in the spring automatically.

[naturenut]

on 7/15/2009 Great tips on growing collard greens.