Kale Red Russian
If you're looking to grow meaty leaves to accompany roasts/stews, you have to include kale in your veg patch. It's packed with flavour, just like its bedfellows cabbage and broccoli, but it's a darned sight easier to grow. Plus, you can pick leaves off as and when you need them, and the plant will carry on growing. Once you've harvested cabbage or broccoli, that's it. They're finished.
Time from seed to plate: 12 weeks
Sowing Calendar
Sow
Wait till May or June to sow your kale and you'll avoid the little flea beetles that can pepper leaves with holes in early summer.
I prefer to sow my kale in gutters. It's a quick way to sow, and it's easy to tease out individual plants for planting out. Fill the gutter with compost, firm, and create a shallow groove down the centre about 1/2 an inch deep. Sprinkle the seed in sparingly aiming for one every 1/2in or so. Water gently but thoroughly.
When the seedlings come up, thin to leave 2in between plants.
Sowing method: Gutters
Grow
Once your seedlings are 4-5in high, it's time to transfer them to your plot. Separate the plants from one another in the gutter using a trowel and plant out individually, leaving 12in between plants in both directions.
Try and position the plants 1/2in deep and firm the soil down well because they have shallow roots and can get blown over by the wind.
Butterflies are likely lay eggs on your kale that will turn into voracious caterpillars. Your plants will be able to cope with this to a point, but you will need to try and pick at least some of the caterpillars off. To avoid this you can cover the whole lot with micromesh netting to stop any bugs - flea beetles or caterpillars getting at them.
Do bear in mind that the 'caterpillar season' finishes in September and plants that have been quite seriously nibbled up to this point can easily grow back lots of healthy new leaves for harvesting through autumn and winter.
Harvest
Just twist off the leaves when they're about 10in long. Pick from several plants as opposed to decimating one!
You can pick tender babyleaves to eat raw in salads, or leave the plants to come up to flower and pick the flower shoots like purple sprouting broccoli.