How to Grow Collards

The toughest thing in the cabbage family, and it gets sweeter after frost.

Collards are a loose-leaf brassica that never forms a head. They are the toughest thing in the cabbage family: they shrug off heat that bolts kale, they take frost that flattens lettuce, and a single planting can crop for months if you keep picking the outer leaves.

Sowing

Sow in January, February, March, August, September, October. Direct sow about a centimetre deep, or raise seedlings and plant out at four true leaves. Space them 45 cm apart, which feels generous until they fill it.

Collards want firm ground, not fluffy. Brassicas that rock in loose soil make poor plants, so tread the bed before planting and firm each seedling in properly.

Growing them

• Feed them. This is a leaf crop and it wants nitrogen. Compost at planting and a liquid feed every few weeks keeps the leaves coming.
• Water steadily. Uneven watering gives tough, bitter leaves.
• Net them. White butterfly and cabbage moth will find them. Fine netting from the day you plant is far easier than picking caterpillars later.
• Watch for aphids in the growing tip, which is where they hide.

Harvesting, and why frost helps

Pick the outer leaves from the bottom, leaving the growing point and at least six leaves on the plant. Done that way one plant crops for months rather than weeks.

Collards genuinely improve after frost. Cold converts starches to sugars and the leaves turn sweeter and less cabbagey, which is why they are a winter staple where they are grown seriously.

In the kitchen

Strip the tough midrib out of larger leaves. Young leaves are fine raw and shredded through a slaw. Older ones want slow cooking, braised with something smoky and a splash of vinegar, which is the classic treatment and still the best one.

See also: How to Grow Collards in the Plant Library for sowing months tuned to your region.