Growing Collard Greens: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 18, 2026
Collard greens are a Southern staple for a reason: they’re tough, cold-hardy, and keep producing edible leaves through conditions that would end most other greens for the season. The tradeoff is that they take real space and time — this isn’t a quick, tuck-it-anywhere crop.
What to expect
Collards can be started indoors seven weeks before last frost or direct-sown a few weeks before it, and at 70 days to maturity, they’re a slower-growing brassica than mustard or bok choy. The plant grows fairly tall and broad-leaved, and at only one plant per square foot, it needs real room — crowd it and it will shade out shorter neighbors. Frost actually improves the flavor of collard leaves, sweetening them, which is part of why they’re often left in the ground well into cold weather.
Common problems
Because collards occupy a square foot for over two months, the main planning problem is usually space rather than plant health — giving them too little room stunts both the collards and whatever’s growing nearby. Keep them away from tomatoes and peppers, both commonly reported as poor neighbors for collards.
Where this fits in your garden
Onion scent may help deter common collard pests, and dill nearby attracts beneficial predatory wasps that protect brassicas generally — see the full companion guide for collard-greens. Because collards are tall and only one per square foot, budget real space and light clearance for them in the Garden Designer rather than tucking them in as a filler crop.
Companion planting guide for Collard Greens · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 3-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Either — Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss — Collard Greens tolerates either.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing).
Varieties worth considering
- Georgia Southern (Creole) — NC State Extension identifies Georgia Southern, along with Vates, Carolina Improved Heading (Morris), Blue Max, and Heavi Crop, as varieties that have consistently done well in North Carolina — Georgia Southern is the larger, more productive of the two most common choices, while Vates is milder and slower to bolt. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety — we haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy collard greens seeds
Some links on this page go to retailers we may eventually earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a genuine consensus of positive, independent reviews — see the sources cited on each item.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing collard greens" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video — results vary and aren't vetted by us)