Grow Your Own Never-Ending Supply of Organic Kale Leaves at Home

I've been reading this book called How Not to Die by Gene Stone and Michael Greger. (It's a great book to read right before you go to sleep, if you know what I mean.) The book is broken up into sections on all the different ways we die—because we are going to die, of course, despite the title. There's "How Not to Die from Lung Cancer" and "How Not to Die from Heart Disease" and so on.

What does this have to do with kale, Nicole?

Well, interesting enough, kale keeps coming up in the book. I'm not exaggerating when I say the authors list kale amongst the foods scientifically proven to prevent or reverse certain diseases in almost every chapter. To put it simply, kale is so good for us. We should all be getting more kale in our diets.

If you're thinking, Okay, but I don't actually like kale, all I have to say is that you've been getting your leaves from the wrong place, and it's called the grocery store. Homegrown kale is better for us, and it tastes so much better, I promise. And you only need a little bit of space and a little bit of time to grow your own year-round supply of kale.

Now, I'm not saying you're going to have kale growing outside in your garden year round. What I'm saying is you'll be able to grow enough to create a year-round supply for you and your family, no matter where you live.

Follow these simple steps, and you're going to be saying "Kale yeah!" all year long.

Start Kale by Seed Indoors

The best way to source your own kale plants is to start seeds indoors. You don't need to end up with a ton of plants. I recommend 4 to 12 plants, depending on the size of your family. I always overdo it and fill an entire seed starting tray with kale, which is just too much.

My favorite varieties of kale to grow include:

• Toscano Kale - Otherwise known as dinosaur kale, this type produces the huge kale trees you see in my books. Plants have dark green leaves with those characteristic bumps, and they make for the best kale chips.
• Blue Curled Scotch Kale - This kale type features those really nice curly leaves. It typically doesn't have nearly as many pest issues as other types, and it tastes really delicious in salads, on top of adding a nice crunch.
• Red Russian Kale - This is a softer kale leaf that's perfect for salads. It's much sweeter than the others, but it is more prone to caterpillars. It's worth the extra pest pressure, believe me.

You'll take this first step in the colder part of the year—November through February, depending on where you live. The best time is about 100 to 75 days before your last frost date. If you're reading this in the Southern Hemisphere (Welcome!), flip that; do this during your winter. Kale is in the Brassica family, and it loves cool weather, which is why we start it by seed indoors while it's still cold out.

You don't need a complex seed starting system, just a tray, some organic seed starting mix, and an artificial light. (You'll end up with leggy kale seedlings if you rely on light from a window.) Kale seeds are super fast to sprout, like within 2 or 3 days fast. You'll start seeing those first true leaves appear in about two weeks. At this point, keep the light really close to the seedlings as they grow.

Transplant Kale Seedlings to the Garden

You'll let your kale seedlings grow indoors until they have four to six leaves. Then they're ready to put into the garden. By this point, you're probably in late February or early March, depending on what your climate is like. You're about 60 days out from your last chance of frost. It's okay that there's still a threat of frost; you just need the top 3 to 4 inches of your soil in the ground or your raised bed to be workable (that means you can stick a shovel in it and move the soil around).

When you're transplanting your kale babies to the garden space, make sure to give each one a full square foot to itself. These kale plants are going to become huge. Huuuuuge! Okay? They also grow tall, which is why I like to put them down the middle of a raised bed or in the back corners. I don't recommend planting an entire bed with nothing but kale. I like to mix kale with a wide variety of other plants. Again, just make sure to give them each a full square foot.

What If You Missed the Planting Timeline?

Missed the boat? If you're reading this and thinking, "Dang it, I'm two months too late! By the time I get my kale started, it'll be summertime," don't worry. You're just going to go to a local nursery and buy some well-grown kale starts from them instead. You can plant those in your garden and be good to grow.

Harvest Your First Kale Leaves

Believe it or not, you can take your first harvest at this point. It's just 4 to 5 weeks after you started those seeds.

To harvest kale, go to the base of the plant and cut the lower, outer leaves. At this point, only harvest one or two leaves from each plant. Enjoy your first ever homegrown kale salad or kale soup or kale smoothie or sautéed kale—whatever you want to do with your fresh leaves.

You're still about 45 to 50 days away from your last anticipated frost of spring at this point, but you can and should begin harvesting those lower and outer leaves from your kale plants on a weekly basis. Harvesting stimulates the meristems of the plant (those are basically cells at the edge of the leaves and the heart of the plant that keep the plant growing). That means the more you cut on those leaves, the more your plants will produce. It's like how my hair stylist told me the more I cut my hair, the faster it'll grow. I'm not sure if that's true for hair, but I know it to be true for kale.

By the time you reach your last frost date, your kale plants will be well established in your garden, and you'll have already taken numerous leaf harvests.

Double Your Kale Harvest

The period right around your last frost date is going to be your prime time for kale. Don't worry, your plants will last through the summer and into the fall, but now is when they're really shining. They're not dealing with pest issues yet, and the temperature hasn't warmed up enough to stress them out. This is your time to get the most out of your plants, and you do that by taking a double harvest.

Here's what you do: Every time you harvest your kale, you take enough to enjoy fresh, and then you take more leaves to freeze. Make salads and side dishes and smoothies with the kale you took for fresh use. Go ahead and rinse the leaves intended for freezing too. You can even dip them in some vinegar water if you want. Dry them off and slide them into a sealed container like a Ziplock bag or freezer-safe Tupperware. Put those leaves in the freezer. You can stick a ton of kale leaves into each bag or container because they'll stack together like paper.

Repeat this each and every week throughout early spring and into the summer.

Decide Whether You'll Start Fresh with New Kale Plants

You'll most likely begin seeing some pests on your kale leaves as you move into the middle of summer (around 30 to 60 days past your last frost date). The caterpillars are arriving; the aphids are landing. As your plants deal with these pest problems, you might need to be a little more selective with how many leaves you use fresh versus save for later. You should hopefully already have a nice supply in your freezer by now.

As you near the fall, it's time to take stock of your plants. If they're still nice and healthy, you can keep them. If you think they're struggling too much, you might decide it's best to start over with fresh plants for the fall growing season. Kale is a biennial, so your plants will try to hang in there in your garden for as long as you'll let them. But just because they can stay doesn't mean they should, you know? It's not a big deal to pull plants from your garden and replace them with new ones that have never been stressed out.

When I lived in Houston, my kale plants would sometimes make it through the incredibly hot summers and still look great. Other years, I'd know they need to go by July or August. In Chicago, my kale plants thrived through the summer and looked picture perfect by fall. There was never any need to plant new kale plants.

If you choose to start anew with fresh plants for the fall, you'll start some seeds indoors or buy new plants, just like you did back in the winter.

If you keep your kale plants, they should continue producing prolifically throughout the fall. Keep in mind that the leaves might not be as sweet or soft as you experienced with younger plants.

So, make the choice. Should your kale stay or go?

Repeat Double Kale Harvests in the Fall

Pick your double harvest routine right back up. Harvest half for fresh use and half for the freezer. Your kale plants should be really happy that those temperatures are coming back down. Kale loves when the temps are between 45°F to 75°F—that's when you'll get the healthiest, most beautiful, most prolific harvests.

Use Your Frozen Kale Leaves All Winter Long

This brings us to wintertime. When it's time to shut down your garden—whether that's as early as October or as late as January (or at all), you'll just head to your freezer and take kale leaves to use in your hearty winter stews and frittatas and omelets. Make juices and smoothies that remind you of summer. You can enjoy your leaves pretty much however you want; really, everything but a salad will work perfectly with that frozen kale.

Here's the great thing: You preserved the leaves the minute they were harvested, so all those nutrients are bottled up in those frozen leaves. Your kale wasn't shipped across the country or lingering on grocery store shelves. Your body will get to enjoy all the vitamins and minerals of just-picked kale leaves in the middle of winter.

Before you know it, it'll be time to start seeds for spring.

That's How You Create Your Own Year-Round Supply of Kale Leaves

When I lived in Chicago, I would use my frozen kale stash from about November through March. Just as my freezer was running on empty, it'd be time to put the seedlings I recently started into the garden. I could begin to harvest those first tiny leaves from the garden and start the process all over again.

If you're in a warmer climate like Houston, you might need to tweak this timeline a bit. Your kale plants can actually survive in your garden year round. You might use your freezer stash in the summer, when the temps are so high that your kale plants slow their production. Then, your plants should actually be much happier over your winter months, so you won't need to squirrel away leaves for that period like Northerners do.

In Nashville, where I garden now, I anticipate the possibility of needing to tap into my kale cache twice a year: once in the middle of winter and again for a very short period in the summer. That's just in case it gets super hot in July or August and I decide to start again with fresh plants.

You'll figure out a rhythm that works for your area.

Time to Start Your Kale Supply!

If you use this method of taking double harvests when your kale plants are thriving, you can grow a year-round supply of kale with just 4 to 12 kale seeds. These seeds will cost you under $1, but in return, you'll harvest hundreds of dollars' worth of kale.

I promise you, you're going to have all the kale you ever need. You're going to become the poster child for the How Not to Die book because you're going to be filling your body with so much good stuff that came right from your own garden.

I hope this inspires you to grow your own kale this year and create your very own year-round supply!