Vegetable · Brassicaceae
When to plant collards
Heat tolerant in a way no other brassica manages, and cold tolerant at the other end of the year too. Collards will crop where cabbage simply gives up.
Start seed indoors
6 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Plant out
2 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Sow direct
2 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make collards plantable anywhere.
- Start seed indoors 6 weeks before the last frost.
- Plant out 2 weeks before the last frost.
- Sow direct 2 weeks before the last frost.
- Expect 55–75 days to maturity, counted from sowing.
- Can also be sown in late summer for an autumn crop or to overwinter.
Getting the timing right
Sow in spring for summer picking or, better, twelve weeks before the first autumn frost for leaves through winter. Pick the lower leaves and the plant keeps rising.
Frost tolerance
Survives about -10C and sweetens sharply once night temperatures drop below freezing, which is why southern growers treat frost as the start of the season rather than the end.
Classified as very-hardy, with damage expected below -10°C (14°F)14°F (-10°C).