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Even Star Collards
  • Even Star Collards
  • Even Star Collards
Even Star Collards

Brassica oleracea
$4.50
Description

A landrace (more wild and diverse) variety that is vigorous and diverse, selected for tenderness and mild flavor over uniformity of leaves. This variety was bred and developed at Even Star farm in Maryland, you can read about this wonderful farm HERE. We got our seeds from the farmers at Twin Oaks Seed Farm in Virginia, provided through Common Wealth Seed Growers.

The small leaves are sweet enough for use as young salad greens. This variety was a winner in Kathy Whipple's garden last season. It was the first by several weeks to be harvestable, and the leaves remained tender and sweet even at a later stage with large leaves. The extreme heat in May did send some bolting along with other collards too. Kathy seeded 16 plants at the end of October and these provided a mess of greens at least twice a week, plus 5 gallons of greens put by in the freezer!

Seems resistant to powdery mildew, and tolerant of a wide range of soils while being very cold hardy.

Image from Kathy's garden in 2019*
Product details
  • 100 seeds
  • 50 days to harvest
  • Seeds sourced from Common Wealth Seed Growers in Virginia, a farmer-based seed company
How to grow

Collards do best in cooler weather, although many varieties can easily handle the warm spells typical of Florida winters. Some collards have been known to continue growing (although much less vigorously) into the spring and even summer, if protected from afternoon sun, and kept well-mulched and watered. In North Florida, you can plant anytime from August through February.

Direct sow or transplant seedlings ¼ inch deep or less, with plants spaced about 12–18 inches apart. Collards are hungry crops but also can subsist on less, but will grow lush, in fertile, healthy soil. Add compost or other organic fertilizers as needed, keep the soil covered with a thick layer of leafy mulch, and water regularly during extended dry periods.

Collards can be harvested leaf-by-leaf throughout the season. Pick the larger outer leaves while leaving the younger leaves growing in the center, and the plant can continue producing for quite a long time. Some varieties can also be harvested as a whole plant and may re-grow after cutting.

If you eat a lot of collards, consider succession planting—starting new seeds or transplants several times throughout the growing season. This keeps a steady supply of young, productive plants coming along as older plants begin to slow down.
How to save seeds

Sadly, we don't often see collards going to seed in our climate. It seems to be a rare occasion and by the time they do, they are infested with the emergence of spring time aphids. Collards are a biennial crop, which means they need two seasons of growth and a true dormant winter period in order to trigger seed development.

However, in our subtropical climate, collards will produce seeds during winters that are unusually cold, with extended periods in the 50F range. Some winters we have that, and collards can be successfully grown for seeds, and that's how we are slowly building our Florida-grown seed supply. Very mild winters with little extended cold, will be less likely to support collard flowering and seeding.

Brassicas within the same species can cross-pollinate if they are flowering at the same time. Brassica oleracea is a diverse group of vegetables to which collards belong, and if you are growing more than one type and they flower at the same time, they will most certainly cross (for example with broccoli!). This is only a concern if you are attempting to preserve a specific variety.

For long-term seed saving, we recommend having at least 20 plants flowering when you collect seed. More is even better! When growing specifically for seed, we often grow 80–200+ plants to maintain a broad and healthy gene pool.

If growing that many plants isn't practical for your garden, don't worry! You can simply let a few plants flower and provide a valuable food source for bees and other pollinators, then cut them back once they're finished flowering.

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