The little bit of snow cover we've had so far this winter melted off in some warm weather this week, so I'm taking the chance to see how the kale is holding up. I'm hoping to make a bed of kale, spinach, and possibly carrots next year, which I'm planning to protect with a
row cover and harvest when the rest of the garden is covered in snow (trying out
Eliot Coleman's idea).
This is by no means scientific, being only a comparison of one plant of each variety, but I'm going to go with it anyway. This first picture is from a "Dwarf Green Curled Kale" I sowed in mid-July (seed purchased from
Bountiful Gardens). It's a little frost-bitten around the edges (not surprising since it's December in Wisconsin!) but otherwise looking pretty good.
Further down the bed, I sowed some "Red Winter" kale seed from Burpee's in mid-August. Despite the name, this variety doesn't seem to be holding up to our mild-so-far winter as well:
So, as I said, this is not exactly a scientific test, but I'm thinking I'll order some more of the Dwarf Green Curled Kale for next year, and not the Red Winter variety.
