Description
A beautiful, ruffled green kale with purple stems that looks and cooks like an oleraceae curly kale but has all the grower benefits of a napus kale. Bred by Megan Allen at Care of the Earth Community Farm from a selection of “Gulag Stars,” a mix of napus kales that have been crossed with B.rapa that were selected and released by Adaptive Seeds.
The goal of the project was a nice tasting and well-textured kale that could be direct-seeded in August, establish and produce uncovered in warm, dry fall weather and with pressure from Harlequin bugs and cabbage moth larvae, and then also produce through the winter and survive uncovered to 10 degrees. Original selections of “Gulag Stars” were made in February 2020 and allowed to “cross” that spring (varieties may mostly self-pollinate instead of crossing). That “grex” was seeded in August 2020 and selected from in February 2021. Two standout varieties emerged: Mira Red-Stem and a sister, collard-like white-stem variety that is still in development. Further selection of Mira Red-Stem occurred during January and February 2022 and again this past winter. This seed is from plants that survived to 9 degrees without row cover and to 3 degrees with row cover.
Mira Red-Stem is very uniform and makes beautiful bunches. For harvesting all winter, row cover is recommended. Flavor is similar to “Meadowlark” (an oleraceae kale). Mira Red-Stem does not become overly sweet in cold weather, which is a complaint Megan and Lalo often heard in their CSA of “Red Russian” kale. Although this variety was bred for fall and winter production, it can be transplanted or direct-seeded in late February to early March for spring production as well. Thanks and appreciation to Adaptive Seeds and to Tim Peters, who did the original bud pollinations.
Bulk quantities will be available starting July 2024.
These are Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) pledged seeds.
