My southern friends are crazy about collards. These nutritious, flavorful greens can be grown anywhere, even way up North where I live.
Unlike most greens, collards will survive the cool spells of spring and fall weather, as well as the intense heat of summer.
In the South, collards are so widely grown that garden stores and nurseries provide young collard plants for sale in the spring. Setting out these plants is a convenient and reliable way to get an early harvest before hot weather slows them down.
The 4- to 5-inch seedlings resemble cabbage plants, but they’ll never head up like cabbage. Some folks refer to collards as “headless cabbages.”
I always seed collards directly in the garden in mid-summer for a fall crop. I sow the seeds in a 16- or 20-inch wide row and thin the plants to 8 to 10 inches apart. Fall and winter collards thrive on cool nights and light freezes. They add the zing and succulence to the leaves.
If you live where winters are mild, you’ll discover that a fall crop of collards lasts well into winter. It will grow until the temperature dips to 20° F. a few times.
Like other greens, collards can be harvested as soon as there are enough leaves to make a meal. Never cut collards all the way to the ground as you would mustard or chard. Once the central bud is removed, collards won’t grow back. Instead, harvest only the bottom leaves of the plant so the central bud will keep putting out branches.
Some gardeners in the South plant a spring crop, harvesting the lower leaves as they need them early in the season. Then they let the plant grow through the summer months and begin heavy harvesting again in the fall. It’s much more common, though, to plant collards twice, once in early spring and again in late summer.
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