Growing Kale: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 18, 2026
Kale is about as low-maintenance as vegetables get, and one of the few that improves with cold, a hard frost sweetens the leaves rather than ruining them. It can be started indoors or direct-seeded, and either way it tends to outlast most other greens into late fall.
Starting it indoors or direct in cool soil
Start it indoors six weeks before your last frost, or direct-seed as early as three weeks before. Kale tolerates cool soil well. At 60 days to maturity and one plant per square foot, it takes more room than a dense green like spinach but rewards it with a much longer harvest window; you can keep picking outer leaves for months rather than harvesting once.
Flea beetles, and the tomato it doesn’t get along with
Small holes riddling the leaves are usually flea beetles or cabbage worms. Row cover early in the season heads off most of the damage before it starts. Kale planted too close to tomatoes can stunt their growth, so keep some distance between the two even though neither is a food-safety issue, just a competition one.
Keep it away from the tomatoes
Onion is a documented companion, its scent is thought to confuse the cabbage moths that target kale. See the full companion guide for kale. Keep it away from tomatoes in your bed layout in the Garden Designer, since kale can stunt tomato growth when planted too close.
Companion planting guide for Kale · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-10. 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. Kale tolerates either.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Kale plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1-2 ft.
Soil & water: pH 6.2-6.5. well-drained. Amend with lime if soil pH falls below 6.2.
Varieties worth considering
- Winterbor (F1): Described by the seed company as showing good cold hardiness and excellent yield, and generally regarded as one of the hardiest curly kale types for extending harvest into cold weather. (source)
- Red Russian: Cornell's Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners database has it as the most-reviewed kale in their system at 33 reviews and a 4.4-star rating, with oak-shaped, gray-green leaves and deep-purple veins that are noticeably more tender than curly types like Winterbor. (source)
- Toscano (Lacinato/Dinosaur kale): Cornell's database rates it 4.4 stars with dark-green, blistered, strap-shaped leaves noted as resistant to both heat and cold. The type most often called for in Tuscan soups, and a different texture entirely from the curly types. (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 kale seeds
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing kale" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Kale: A cold-hardy green that tastes better after a frost, one of the easiest crops to keep going late.
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