Can You Ever Have Too Much Kale?

A friend once texted me: “I'm worried about you. You're eating too much kale."

Too much kale? I thought. Is that even possible?! I guess there really can be too much of a good thing, even when it’s a superfood in the brassica family. Kale, it turns out, can slow your thyroid, though most doctors agree that the nutritional benefits of kale outweigh the risks for people with normal thyroid function. That’s good news for me because my friend was right about one thing: I do eat a lot of kale. 

I typically tend to go a little overkale… I mean overkill on planting kale in my kitchen garden. Every February when it's time to start seeds, I dream about the end of winter and end up filling tray after tray with tiny kale seeds, which grow into plants that take over my raised beds.

Kale plants are so pretty, though, that I usually don't mind letting curly kale plants stretch out a bit or lacinato kale plants turn into pre-historic-looking trees. I also love that I can harvest kale leaves again and again and that the plants will last for years in my garden.

If you don't much care for the taste of kale, try growing your own. You can harvest the leaves when they're smaller and more tender, and also experiment with different varieties that you might not find at the store.

There are many different varieties of kale you can grow in your kitchen garden, so to help you narrow it down, here are my favorites.

The Best Types of Kale

There are so many fun varieties of kale to grow. I recommend growing several different types so you can determine your personal favorite textures and flavors.

Here are the four best varieties of kale to grow:

• curly kale
• red Russian kale
• dinosaur kale
• Siberian kale

Let's look at each of these individually and how best to enjoy their leaves.

Curly Kale Is the Best Type of Kale for Salads

You'll probably recognize curly kale from the grocery store produce section. Curly kales, as the name suggests, have frilly-edged leaves and long stems.

If you're ready to grow this variety yourself, a major bonus is that curly kales are often more resistant to pests than other types.

Curly kales include:

• Blue curled scotch kale (also called vates kale) - This is my favorite kale variety! The bright blue-green leaves are so pretty they're often used as a garnish. They're sweet and a bit nutty and crunchy, perfect for kale chips or kale soup. I also love the leaves in stir fries. This variety tends to grow only 2 feet tall.
• Redbor kale - Want to add some pops of color to your salad bowl? The leaves of redbor grow in purple to deep burgundy, though they'll lose some of their color if cooked. Leaves have a mild, cabbage-like flavor and curl more with cold weather. This hardy hybrid can grow up to 5 feet tall.
• Winterbor kale - This is a cold-hardy type that grows 2 to 3 feet tall and produces blue-green leaves.
• Dwarf blue curled kale - This variety stays more compact, growing only 12 to 16 inches tall.
• Heirloom Siberian curly leaf kale - This plant is a prolific producer of mild-flavored but delicious leaves.

The ruffled leaves of curly kales can be sautéd, tossed into soup, or blended into a fruit smoothie. If you're using curly kale leaves in a salad, which is how I most enjoy them, give the leaves a little massage first with some olive oil to soften the texture and enhance the flavor. It's easy to pull the leaves from the hard stem and midribs by simply tearing them.

Russian Kale Is the Best Type of Kale to Cook

Russian kale boasts flat leaves with serrated edges and is considered the sweetest of all kale varieties. Unfortunately, this type is more prone to pests than other types.

The most popular variety is Red Russian kale, which grows stems that are typically red or a beautiful shade of purple and fade into light green leaves. The frilly leaves tend to be softer and a bit sweet than other varieties. While red Russian kale tends to branch out, I prefer the leaves when they're smaller, before they develop a slight peppery taste with maturity—a good reason to harvest sooner rather than later. I use these purple-y leafy greens in smoothies, sautés, and salads. Red Russian kale plants can grow to be 3 feet tall.

Look for heirloom varieties, such as:

• Red Ursa - This type is bolt-resistant, which means it can hang on in hotter weather.
• Winter Red - The red and purple veins of these leaves turn green when cooked.
• Ragged Jack - The leaves range from blue-green to purple-red and intensify their color with cold weather. Toss these tender, sweet leaves raw into salads.

Thanks to the flat surface of the delicious leaves, they're much easier to chop before adding to soups, stews, or sautés.

I've recently started growing Scarlet kale, which is a cross between red kale and curly kale. It's purple leaves are so pretty, and it handles cold temps like a champ.

Dinosaur Kale Is the Best Type of Kale to Grow

This is a kale of many names, including cavolo nero (which means "black cabbage"), black kale, lacinato kale, Tuscan kale, Italian kale, and toscano kale. As you may have guessed, it originated in the Tuscany region of Italy and has become a staple in many Italian dishes.

The long, slender, dark-green leaves with their bluish hue and bumpy texture (kind of like reptile flesh, thus the dinosaur nickname) are incredibly easy to tell apart from other kale varieties. This variety grows more upright than curly varieties and can often reach several feet tall (I've had some that have grown to almost my height!). If you harvest from them regularly, they begin looking like kale trees.

Supposedly, this type of kale was grown by Thomas Jefferson in his garden at Monticello, which is where I fell in love with the beauty of a vegetable garden.

The bumpy texture on lacinato kale leaves is called savoy and makes them more resistant to frost and cold. Despite these bumps, this is a flat-leaf kale variety, so it's easy to chop, like Russian kale.

Look for heirloom varieties such as:

• Nero di Toscana - Also known as black palm tree, this type dates right back to historic Italy.
• Rainbow lacinato kale - This is a cross between lacinato kale and the cold-hardy redbor. The result is a kale plant with savoyed and curly-edged leaves with the pretty coloring of redbor.
• Dazzling Blue kale - This type actually has a beautiful purple tint. It was bred to be super cold-hardy.

My favorite use for these leaves, besides to toss into smoothies, is to sauté them or make kale chips. Dinosaur kale is also great for soups or stews alongside a hearty bean like cannellini, and when eaten raw in salads, it has a nutty flavor.

Dwarf Siberian Kale Is a Cold-Hardy Variety

As you might expect from a plant with "Siberian" in its name, this type is pretty cold-hardy. This kale plant is easy to grow, resistant to pests, productive, and attractive, with gray-green leaves that are flat in the middle and frilled on the edge. Siberian kale is, however, not as resistant to heat or drought as other varieties.

Unlike the tall growth of dinosaur kale, Siberian kale grows close to the ground in a low cluster.

You might recognize them from those plastic boxes on grocery store shelves, where they're often included in baby salad mixes. Leaves are at their peak flavor after a light frost. Enjoy them in a salad, steam them, or lightly cook them to make them tender.

My Favorite Sources for Kale Seeds

Variety, they say, is the spice of life, and these seed sellers ensure we always have organic, non-GMO, and interesting types of kale to try. Here are a few of my favorite seed sellers:

• Baker Creek Seeds
• Botanical Interests
• High Mowing Seeds
• Johnny's Selected Seeds

If you can't make up your mind on which variety to grow, consider buying a mixed seed pack so you can grow your own kale sampler! Or if you're short on space in your kitchen garden, consider growing kale as a microgreen. This seed pack comes with a higher quantity of seeds intended to be grown as microgreens instead of mature plants.

Grow More Kale Leaves Than You Can Handle

One thing to be aware of when growing kale are garden pests. Find out why there are holes in your kale (totally normal) and what you can do about it.

With a little care, you'll soon be harvesting more nutritious and delicious kale leaves from your garden than you can possibly eat if you go with one of these varieties. Use up your leaves making crispy kale chips, a kale salad you'll actually want to eat, a kale smoothie, or any of these other ideas for garden-fresh kale.

If you've still got leaves left in your harvest basket, then perhaps it's time to wrangle your children into tying garden-fresh kale leaves into little bouquets to give to your neighbors!

I hope you’re kale-ing it in your garden too! We have tons of resources here at Gardenary to ensure nothing kales your gardening vibe.

Happy growing, my friends!