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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-337
Collards
Brassica oleracea var viridis
Collards hold their leaves through both hundred-degree summer heat and hard freezes down to about -15C, a spread few other cabbage-family crops can match, which makes them close to a year-round leaf crop. The cooked leaves carry a strong cabbage flavor, and a planting left to flower in spring gives a second harvest of young shoots tasting close to sprouting broccoli. Left standing through a mild winter it turns biennial and bolts to seed - worth deciding on deliberately rather than letting it happen by accident.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 6–10
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Moderate
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Annual
- Mature height
- 24–36 in
- Mature spread
- 12–24 in
- Plant spacing
- 18–24 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- None
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Adzuki Bean
Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi & H.Ohashi
Adzuki is the odd one out among the beans in this group: a very hot summer is actively too hot for it, since heat above about 35C damages…
Herbaceous · USDA 3–11
African Eggplant
Solanum aethiopicum
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Alsike Clover
Trifolium hybridum
Alsike Clover fixes nitrogen in wet, acid ground too cold and heavy for red clover to thrive in, and its flowers keep bees working all season…
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Amaranth Greens
Amaranthus tricolor
Amaranth greens are one of the few leafy vegetables actually built for peak summer heat rather than one that just tolerates it - sown once…
Herbaceous · USDA 2–11
Anise Hyssop
Agastache foeniculum
Anise hyssop is a genuine dual-purpose herb: the leaves and flowers taste like sweet anise and work raw, cooked, or steeped for tea, and the…
Herbaceous · USDA 4–8
Apple Mint
Mentha suaveolens
Apple Mint is a fast-spreading perennial with densely hairy, spearmint-flavored leaves, usually chopped into a dish or brewed as a tea rather…
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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