An elegant kale with a palm-tree-like habit and blue-green leaves, as ornamental as it is delicious.
About the variety. Leaves are harvested from the bottom up, one at a time over several months; the flavour is not affected by frost. Grows well in containers.
Itinerário técnico
Como cultivar kale nero di toscana?
Um guia de cultivo passo a passo, da sementeira à colheita.
pH ideal 6.5 to 7.5Temperatura ideal 15 to 20 °CCompasso 40 to 50 cm in the row, 50 to 70 cm between rows
Sementeira
Sow in trays one or two centimetres deep at 15 °C to 20 °C and transplant at four to six true leaves, setting the stem deep and firming the soil. It can also be sown direct and thinned later. In mild winter areas a late summer sowing crops right through winter and into the following spring. At about 30 centimetres tall, this variety grows well in a pot twenty centimetres deep with drainage holes. Use a pot at least twenty five centimetres deep with drainage holes, and expect to water more often, because a pot dries out far faster than open ground. Sow from February to April for a summer and autumn harvest, and from July to September for the winter crop.
Solo
It wants firm, deep soil, rich in organic matter and never acid: the ideal pH is between 6.5 and 7.5, and acid soil invites clubroot. It likes settled rather than fluffy soil: firm the ground lightly around the plant after transplanting. Minimum four year rotation away from any other brassica, radish, turnip and rocket included.
Clima
It prefers cool weather, between 15 °C and 20 °C, and is among the hardiest crops in the garden: it takes several degrees of frost and the leaf turns visibly sweeter after it. In strong heat the leaf toughens and turns bitter. On the Portuguese coast it grows through the whole winter without trouble. Inland in Portugal and Spain night frosts do it no harm, but the summer there is too hot and dry for it. In France and Germany it is a summer and autumn crop and stands the winter outdoors without protection; frost only sweetens it. In Italy it is an autumn and winter crop in the centre and south, as in Portugal, and from spring through winter in the north, where it also stands the Po valley cold outdoors.
Fertilização
This is a hungry crop. Work two to three kilos of well rotted compost into each square metre before planting, with a handful of wood ash for potassium. Once growth is away, feed with a liquid organic fertiliser every two or three weeks, moving from a balanced formula to a higher potassium one as cropping begins. Avoid excess nitrogen, which gives lush leaves, a poor crop and a lot of aphids.
Rega
Water regularly to keep the leaves tender. Water shortage makes the leaf permanently leathery and bitter. A straw mulch holds moisture and cuts summer watering. In winter, with regular rain, watering is hardly needed.
Controlo de Infestantes
Hand weed in the first weeks, while the plant is small and loses every contest for light and water. Once it is established, mulch with five to seven centimetres of straw, dried grass or leaves: it holds weeds back, keeps moisture in and stops rain splashing soil onto the lower leaves, which is how most diseases begin. Always hoe shallowly so you do not cut the roots running just under the surface.
Controlo de Pragas
Flea beetle, a small jumping beetle, riddles young leaves with round holes in hot dry weather: keep the soil moist and cover with fine mesh from sowing. Cabbage white caterpillars and diamondback moth eat the leaves from within: apply Bacillus thuringiensis while the caterpillars are small and check the underside of the leaves every week. Cabbage root fly lays at the collar and the larva destroys the root: a cardboard or felt collar around the stem stops the egg laying. Grey cabbage aphid forms waxy colonies on the shoots and is dealt with using potassium soap. A fine insect mesh put on at planting solves almost all of these problems at once.
Doenças
Clubroot is the most serious disease: it deforms the roots, the plant wilts, and the fungus persists in the soil for close to twenty years. Prevent it with a four to five year rotation, good drainage and a pH above 7.0, corrected with lime. Alternaria makes dark concentric spots and downy mildew a grey bloom on the underside of the leaf; both like humidity, so space well and water at the base. Black rot enters at the leaf margins as a yellow V and is carried by seed and irrigation water. Clear all crop debris at the end and keep it out of the compost heap.
Colheita
Pick the outer leaves one by one, working from the bottom up, and always leave the central bud and five or six young leaves: that way the plant produces for months without stopping. Cutting the whole plant at once throws away this crop's biggest advantage. Leaves picked after a frost are the sweetest. Allow about 50 to 60 days from transplanting to the first harvest of this variety. The reference colour is bluish green, and that is what tells you it is ready.
