By Garry Kale: sowing, planting, growing and harvesting
Learn when to sow, plant, care for and harvest kale in your garden.
🌱 Kale : key growing facts
📅 Growing calendar
Indicative Northern Hemisphere temperate-climate calendar only. Adjust to local frost dates, climate, variety and growing conditions. In the Southern Hemisphere, seasons are approximately six months later.
🔎 Growing specifications
🧺 Harvest readiness & expected yield
When to pick
Pick the oldest lower leaves once plants are established, leaving the growing tip intact for repeated harvests.
What to expect
Repeated harvests of outer leaves from each plant over several months.
Indicative only; variety, climate and care affect harvests.🌿 How to grow successfully
🤝 Companion planting
Use neighbouring beds for lettuce, peas or onions if their watering needs fit; no companion plant reliably prevents cabbage pests.
↔️ What to avoid
Do not grow brassicas repeatedly in the same bed; rotate crops to reduce clubroot risk.
🐛 Pests and diseases
Cabbage white caterpillars, flea beetles, aphids and clubroot.
🧤 Ongoing care
Use insect netting during establishment and harvest older leaves while retaining the growing tip.
🧺 Harvest and storage
Harvest at the appropriate maturity for the species; refrigerate promptly.
🧑🌾 From sowing to harvest
Prepare the soil
Firm a compost-enriched bed with pH near neutral; brassicas need steady fertility and moisture.
Sow or transplant
Start in modules or a seedbed, then transplant sturdy seedlings to their final spacing. Fit fine insect mesh immediately.
What to monitor
Inspect leaf undersides for cabbage white eggs and caterpillars; check for flea beetle damage and moisture stress.
When and how to harvest
Pick the oldest lower leaves once plants are established, leaving the growing tip intact for repeated harvests.