Vegetable Seeds - Kale
Kale or Borecole as it was known is one of the easiest leafy brassicas to grow and it stands well in winter as one of the few fresh greens available on the plot.
Kale isn’t a popular crop, many found the flavour bitter but more modern strains have improved the taste and, like sprouts and cabbage, much depends on how it is cooked
For help in growing kale check out our guide here: Grow Your Own Kale
Kale Seeds
To check just seeds with the RHS Award of Garden Merit: Kale Seeds With Award of Garden Merit
Quick Vegetable Selector
Garlic Kale Seeds
Garlic Kale Seeds Hardy greens with a delicious garlic taste! Garlic Kale is a hardy and flavoursome green, originating from Ethiopian cabbage. Successional sowing will provide continuous luscious greens to add to your favourite dishes. Harvest from January to December, as this variety of kale can be grown through the winter in a greenhouse. Height 81-90cm (30-35"); spread 51-60cm (20-24"). Kale is amongst the most nutrient-dense foods, providing us with essential vitamins and antioxidants. Garlic kale has a crisp texture, with a pleasant kale flavour and slightly garlic aftertaste. Good for salads when young and tender, as leaves get larger they can be steamed. Immature flower stems can be cooked like broccoli.
From Suttons Price: £2.99
James Wong - Kale Black Magic
A growing stack of evidence shows compounds called glucosinolates found in crops like kale may suppress the development of cancer cells from the colon, lungs, liver, bladder, breast and stomach. Suttons and Exeter University tested various cruciferous veg for glucosinolates and Kale Black Magic showed by far the highest levels of all, with more than 5x the levels of some of the others. A newish, cut and come again variety, bred for the British climate, it makes a great addition to the diet but would look great in a potager border too! ?
From Suttons Price: £2.99
Kale (Borecole) Seeds - F1 Peacock White
A very showy kale, with frizzled white leaves that make it look more like a beautiful flower. Equally at home in a mixed flower border as it is in the veg garden. Use the tasty white leaves in salads or steamed.
From Suttons Price: £3.49
Kale (Organic) Seeds - Nero Di Toscano
Long, dark green leaves to cut from late summer to early spring. Pretty hardy. Tasty steamed or stir-fried. Young leaves can also be used in salads.
From Dobies Price: £2.49
Kale (Organic) Seeds - Nero Di Toscano
Long, dark green leaves to cut from late summer to early spring. Pretty hardy. Tasty steamed or stir-fried. Young leaves can also be used in salads.
From Suttons Price: £2.49
Kale (Organic) Seeds - Red Curled
Large, deep red coloured, tightly curled leaves. Slightly slower growing than green types.
From Dobies Price: £2.99
Kale (Organic) Seeds - Red Curled
Large, deep red coloured, tightly curled leaves. Slightly slower growing than green types.
From Suttons Price: £2.99
Kale Rainbow Candy Crush (12)
Kale Rainbow Candy Crush A delicious edible ornamental! Taking over a decade to create this unbelievable plant, including over 40,000 labour hours! The Kale Rainbow Candy Crush has?new growth as a?vibrant fluorescent pink colour, where older leaves remain a traditional, luscious green. Plants hold well in the ground, keeping their stunning pink colour for months, so perfect for ornamental purposes as well as making you veg plot look amazing!? Bred to produce significantly more leaves than any other kale for its height, with a reduced space between the leaf internodes. It's not just a good looker, this kale is also crispy and tasty, perfect to add to salads raw, blitzed in a smoothie or steamed to produce delicious cooked leaves which stay dark purple. - High in antioxidants and rich anthocyanins, which are reported to help prevent cell damage. Perfect to make healthy kale crisps, simply toss with some oil, salt and pepper, then bake until crisp.A new and exciting ground breaking introduction from Brassicassa! This brassica breeding program was set up with a single objective in Pennsylvania in the US.. To move the brilliant pink and red colours from traditional flowering kales into edible brassicas. The project was referred to as the "crossover project", one designed to produce ornamental edibles and edible ornamentals! Was it possible to create fluorescent pink leaf kale? After investigation, it seemed possible to also improve the nutritional value by developing deep dark coloured Kales and to improve cutting yields by decreasing internode length and increasing leaf count. The first crosses were made in 2008 and with Brassica breeding being slow, the following 10 years were spent developing inbred lines derived from those initial hybridizations. For many of these years typically 500-1000 lines were grown every year. With it being a slow and lengthy project and many of the individual crosses being pollinated by hand, the total edible ornamental Kale programme typically took 8-10 technicians each week for 18-20 weeks a year, resulting in a total of around 40,000 labour hours and costing in the region of $3,000,000 for the total project to create such a groundbreaking development After all of this, by 2020 the project proved a massive success with a huge increase in flavour in the crossover types. The leaves of our hybrid kales are sweet. Not bitter. Not astringent. Most traditional flowering kales have leaves which can be quite bitter or astringent. Constant taste tests on each selection prevented any unwanted bitterness from being carried through and over the course of the crossover brassica project, it is likely that many, many thousands of kale leaves have been tasted in order to achieve such success Traditional flowering kales are traditionally selected for a long-lasting ornamental life which is obviously not good for edible varieties so needed to be minimised to create a softer and more succulent leaf texture which was not easy to achieve Following over a decades work, success was achieved and the leaf colour was enhanced and increased the anthocyanin content in the pink kale selections. We expect this to also increase antioxidant values in these kales as well. Antioxidants are natural substances that may prevent or delay some types of cell damage. Diets high in vegetables or fruits, which are good sources of antioxidants, have been found to be healthy. We cannot guarantee that eating our beautiful kales will make you more healthy, but we can guarantee that our kales will be attractive to the eye, and taste good to the palate.
From Suttons Price: £15.98
Kale Seeds - Black Magic
A variety of the Italian black cabbage, bred to perform better in our climate, with improved cold tolerance, colour, leaf shape and bolt resistance than current Italian varieties. Good cut-and-come again crop. Tom says: Kale has had a huge resurgence in recent years thanks to it?s incredibly high nutritional values, so much so that we?ve seen headlines like ?Kale shortage imminent?. Easy to grow, incredibly productive and with a multitude of colours and leaf shapes? what?s not to like? ?
From Suttons Price: £2.99
Kale Seeds - Buttonhole Starmaker
One of the most attractive kales available, with dark green leaves and stunning pink veins. Specially selected for its mild, sweeter flavour. Perfect to steam and add a striking colour to your plate, or stir-fry to add the 'WOW' factor to your meal. Attractive in the garden and helps create a mixed veg/flower border. Harvest September-mid December. Height 30-40cm (12-16); spread 30-40cm (12-16).
From Suttons Price: £3.49
Kale Seeds - Dwarf Green Curled
Dark green, densely curled leaves. The plants are dwarf growing and compact in habit. Very winter hardy. Tom says: Kale has had a huge resurgence in recent years thanks to it?s incredibly high nutritional values, so much so that we?ve seen headlines like ?Kale shortage imminent?. Easy to grow, incredibly productive and with a multitude of colours and leaf shapes? what?s not to like?
From Suttons Price: £1.55
Kale Seeds - Dwarf Green Curled
Dwarf habit with closely curled leaves. A superb source of tasty and highly nutritious autumn, winter and spring 'greens'. Resistant to very bad winter conditions.
From Dobies Price: £1.49
Kale Seeds - F1 Reflex
A dark-leaved, intensely-curled, fully winter hardy variety which stands well without yellowing and can be picked for much of the year from successional sowings. Although mainly used in winter as mature leaves, it can also be used in summer as tasty ?baby? leaves. RHS Award of Garden Merit winner. The most reliable, nutritious winter vegetable. Withstands adverse weather conditions to yield a good crop of delicious young foliage and sideshoots in winter and spring. Tom says: Kale has had a huge resurgence in recent years thanks to it?s incredibly high nutritional values, so much so that we?ve seen headlines like ?Kale shortage imminent?. Easy to grow, incredibly productive and with a multitude of colours and leaf shapes? what?s not to like? ?
From Suttons Price: £2.99
Kale Seeds - Fizz
A?fast growing, upright, deeply lobed variety. Ideal for salad leaves, or, if grown at wider spacings, will be more productive with larger leaves that can be used for cooking. Mature plants are very winter hardy. Tom says: Kale has had a huge resurgence in recent years thanks to it?s incredibly high nutritional values, so much so that we?ve seen headlines like ?Kale shortage imminent?. Easy to grow, incredibly productive and with a multitude of colours and leaf shapes? what?s not to like? ?
From Suttons Price: £2.99
Kale Seeds - Frost Byte F1
Kale Seeds - Frost Byte F1 Kale 'Frost Byte F1' is an attractive edible kale that is greatly ornamental. The crops develop textured and ruffled leaves that contrast against their white centres as they mature with age. The leaves not only look great but taste great, with a delightfully sweet flavour from the leaf through to the stalk. This kale will also provide the crispiness you need in homecooked dishes along with its superfood nutritional values.? It is best used for multiple cuts, as picking leaves from the bottom upwards will prolong the harvesting period. Colouration may increase when grown in colder temperatures. Height 60cm, width 45cm.
From Suttons Price: £3.99
Kale Seeds - Mix
A selection of different kales, tried and tested in the UK climate, offering a wide culinary use. The major benefit to gardeners is providing delicious, highly nutritious greens when the weather is far too cold for other vegetables. Sow March-June. Harvest August-February. The most reliable, nutritious winter vegetable. Withstands adverse weather conditions to yield a good crop of delicious young foliage and sideshoots in winter and spring.
From Suttons Price: £2.99
Kale Seeds - Mixed
A selection of different kales, tried and tested in the UK climate, offering a wide culinary use. The major benefit to gardeners is providing delicious, highly nutritious greens when the weather is far too cold for other vegetables. Mix contains the varieties: Black Magic, Scarlet, Dwarf Green Curled.
From Dobies Price: £2.99
Kale Seeds - Nero Di Toscana
A much admired Italian kale, whose leaves darken to dark green, almost black as the cooler temperatures of autumn arrive. Boil, steam or stir-fry, picking the leaves as required. Harvest September-January.
From Dobies Price: £2.49
Kale Seeds - Oldenboer F1
Kale Seeds - Oldenboer F1A fantastic variety of kale that benefits from a long harvesting period.Kale Seeds - Oldenboer F1 is the latest in modern breeding for kale, producing very uniform plants and an excellent growing habit. Benefitting from the F1 hybrid, Kale Seeds - Oldenboer F1 will tend to produce more and better crops. The tightly curled leaves produced are absolutely perfect for any style of cooking and thin mid-ribs mean much less waste!The established plants from these seeds will grow to a height of 45?60cm tall and are ideal for growing in exposed areas of your garden, due partly to it?s compact growing habit. Kale Seeds - Oldenboer F1 has a very long harvest period spanning from July?March the following year! Meaning you can enjoy Kale Oldenboer F1 for a much longer period of time compared to other varieties.
From Dobies Price: £2.99
Kale Seeds - Red Russian
Rob says: This heritage kale forms 60-90cm plants with green/grey leaves in the shape of giant oak leaves. As the colder weather arrives, the leaves begin to take on a red tinge (pretty enough for a winter border) and the flavour sweetens. Kale has recently been classed as a super food. But gardeners have been eating this tasty crop for centuries before anyone else jumped on the band wagon. Try making kale crisps, simply snip bite-size pieces from the leaves, wash and dry. Then drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt and bake at 175 degrees for 10-15 minutes. They taste great and get kids eating veg!
From Dobies Price: £2.00
Kale Seeds - Redbor F1
Attractive purple/red leaves, good winter hardiness and excellent tolerance to pests and diseases, Redbor will make a delicious, nutritious and beautiful addition to your vegetable or flower garden. A superb source of tasty and highly nutritious autumn, winter and spring 'greens'. Resistant to very bad winter conditions. RHS Award of Garden Merit winner.
From Dobies Price: £2.99
Kale Seeds - Scarlet
Try these deeply curled, crimson/purple leaves in salads, cooked or as an ingredient in soups. The colour, flavour and texture is outstanding! Recommended for freezing. Tom says: Kale has had a huge resurgence in recent years thanks to it?s incredibly high nutritional values, so much so that we?ve seen headlines like ?Kale shortage imminent?. Easy to grow, incredibly productive and with a multitude of colours and leaf shapes? what?s not to like? ?
From Suttons Price: £1.55
Kale Seeds - Scarlet
Enjoy an abundant harvest of delicious, deeply curled, crimson/purple leaves, which can be eaten with salads, cooked or used as an ingredient in soups. Suitable for freezing. Resistant to very bad winter conditions.
From Dobies Price: £1.99
Kale Seeds - Starbor F1
An extremely winter hardy variety with compact, attractive plants that can be grown closer together than normal.Produces lots of highly crinkled leaves that can be harvested for up to 7 months of the year.
From Dobies Price: £2.49
Kale Seeds - Yurok F1
The first F1 Cavolo Nero style kale which is a more compact variety, with heavily crinkled leaves ideal for smaller spaces. The uniform dark green/blue leaves don't yellow, allowing leaves to be picked from the bottom of the plant. More mildew resistant than other kales. Harvest from summer to spring!
From Dobies Price: £2.99
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